The Eddy Brothers - Physical Mediums Part 1

The Mediumship of the Eddy Brothers

By N. Riley Heagerty

Seven miles north from Rutland in the state of Vermont, in a wooded valley shut in by the slopes of the beautiful Green Mountains
and lying high above the tide water, is the tiny hamlet of Chittenden.
On a quiet back road, not far from this little community, facing away
from the road, sits a large remodeled 19th century farmhouse. It is a
well maintained two storey structure, with a covered porch built on
and, typical of this New England region and many rural areas of the United States,
it has five shuttered windows up top and bottom. If one is directly
facing the front of the building, known for many years now as the High
Life Ski Lodge, it can be seen that to the main structure another
addition had been built, extending the overall length of the building
into the rear of the property. Many, many decades ago, when the
original farmhouse had been purchased, the main structure originally
faced eastward, towards the road, and was then actually turned to face
south, away from the road. The main structure then ran parallel to the
extension.

To the casual observer, there is nothing remarkable about this
particular dwelling, it is simply an old farmhouse that has been done
over and is now the lodge that it is. But to some of the elderly
residents of this remote farming district, certain historians and town
clerks, and the last speck of the surviving relatives of the old
generation Spiritualists who are buried out in the distant hills, they
know of something else, something altogether different about the big
white house on the back road. They know that connected to this
particular acreage in the 1870s, heaven itself opened its doors and the
spirits came, producing one of the greatest psychic events of the 19th
century. To the Spiritualists, and to those who know and believe, then
and now, there is truly only one area of notoriety that will forever be
connected to the hamlet of Chittenden, and that is that it was the
nearest post-town to this very house, the homestead farm of the Eddy
family of spiritual mediums.

The story of the Eddy family, as complete and wondrous a story ever to
be put on record in the entire history of American Spiritualism, is due
chiefly to the indefatigable efforts of one man, Colonel Henry Steel
Olcott, who first visited the Eddy farm in the latter part of August,
1874, in the interest of the New York Sun newspaper and stayed only five days. He then returned unexpectedly, hired as a special correspondent for the Daily Graphic,
also out of New York, who sent him up to investigate the phenomena and
this time, most historically and importantly, he stayed right in
residence at the Eddy house itself for an entire two and a half months.
For a city person like Olcott, this was an incredible feat of endurance
in itself, for these were plain fare, hard working dirt farmers and
mostly illiterate. The result of Olcott's investigations was fifteen
articles which appeared consecutively in the Daily Graphic in October and November of 1874 and which caused an absolute sensation throughout most of the country and even parts of Europe.

In 1875, his book, People From The Other World,
was published and it established the Eddys, for all time, in the
hierarchy of physical mediumship and Spiritualism. A second work
appeared in 1877 by Mary Dana Shindler, A Southerner Among the Spirits,
and in this fine work were dedicated five chapters to her stay at the
Eddy farm of twenty-three days. In her work, and also a third notable
work by Epes Sergeant in 1901, Proof Palpable of Immortality,
there are many valuable quotes by others who also witnessed the
phenomena when there at the house. Interesting elements of Sargents
work are the letters written to him by Henry Olcott prior to the
publication of People From The Other World. For those who have
no access to rare books, there are basic reference works available
which, for the most part, do justice to the Eddy phenomena and the
story of their lives - all of them are based on Colonel Olcott's work
and will be listed at the end of this present article for The Ark Review.

This work which I have put together will be based solely on the
eye-witness accounts mentioned above: they were there. Additionally, I
have obtained reports from the Chittenden Historical Society, the Town
Clerk, Mr. Don Meyer, and local newspapers and magazine articles. I
have visited Chittenden and the former Eddy property twice, in 1989 and
then again in 1992, both journeys, due to the enormous distance from
where I lived, requiring overnight stay. While researching at the
Chittenden local library, when I was discussing the Eddy family and
their phenomena with the librarian, I was approached by a gentleman who
walked out of the side aisle. He said that he could not help but take
notice in what I was saying. He was Steven Eddy, a direct descendant of
the family tree. In this short span of time we call earth-life, no-one
will ever tell me that spirits do not directly influence all that we
do. It is not a matter whether it is a fact or not, but whether who
realises it or not while sailing through this plane of experience and
progression.

In this work, the first sections will deal with the information on
their early lives obtained by Olcott; the beginnings of the
manifestations and their subsequent trials and tribulations. The second
part will deal exclusively with the eye-witness accounts of the séances
of the Eddys at the farm. But first, let us consider the author of the
masterly work, People From the Other World.

Henry Steel Olcott was a highly intelligent and learned gentleman; he
was a barrister and, it turns out, was quite fluent in almost half a
dozen languages, both modern and classical. At a young age he became a
prominent authority on agriculture and established an American school
dedicated to the subject based on Swiss methods. After turning down the
prestigious position offered to him by the United States Government of
Chief Commissioner of Agriculture, he maintained his post as
agricultural editor of the New York Tribune, working under
Horace Greeley (a noted, open-minded investigator of the early
manifestations of the Fox sisters). He joined the Union forces in the
Civil War and saw and participated in much action, achieving the rank
of Colonel. He received an honorable discharge for meritorious service.
During the last part of the war, he was assigned as Special
Commissioner for the United States War Department. It is interesting to
note, and considered startling in its nature to some, that after
leaving the Eddy farm when completing his investigations, he shortly
after formed with Madame Helena P. Blavatsky - who had also visited the
farm and met Olcott there for the first time - the Theosophical
Society. Quite a leap from full-form materialisation phenomena and dark
circle physical manifestations, to neo-Buddhism in India along with Annie Besant, eventually A.P. Sinnett and, of course H.P.B., but that is precisely what he did.

Identified with no psychic movement whatsoever before his journey to
the Eddy farm, Olcott, clear-brained and scientifically minded, left
absolutely no stone or board unturned in his attempt to fathom the
mystery of the manifestations while there, thoroughly examining the
floors, the ceilings and the walls to make sure there were no hidden
trap doors to make possible the entrance and departure of spirit
visitors. The only way to proceed in his investigations he reasoned was
to eliminate first, every other possible explanation until one was left
with what William James, the first American president of the Society
for Psychical Research, called 'white crows'. 'If you wish to upset the
law that all crows are black', James wrote, 'you must not seek to show
that no crows are; it is enough to prove one single crow to be white'.

During the course of his stay at the Eddys, Olcott enlisted the
services of an architect, a carpenter, two illustrators - Alfred
Kappes, and T.W. Williams - to draw everything that he observed and
witnessed, a mason, and eventually he ordered from Rutland, so that he
could actually weigh the materialised spirits, a full size, Howe's
Standard platform scale, set to perfect order, with a certificate
signed by the company for its accuracy and quality, and lastly, a
spring-balance, ordered and delivered by the same company (L.G.
Kingsley), to test the power of the spirits materialised hands, with a
weighing capacity of fifty pounds. In one of the most incredible
instances ever recorded - which I will lay out in complete detail later
in the story - Olcott had two different spirits on two different
occasions, pull this device with their one arm extending from the
makeshift cabinet; the spring-balance was fastened to a point outside
the cabinet, and the spirit pulled the ring at the other end, with
utmost strength and power I might add. There doesn't seem to have been
any level of precaution, in the strictest and most thorough sense of
the word, which Olcott omitted in his investigations, and this sets it
far above many in the field.

First Impressions of Chittenden and The Eddys

Henry Olcott's first visit lasted only five short days. Knowing nothing
about the residents of the hamlet itself and most importantly, unaware
completely of the torturous past of the Eddy mediums, he had this to
say: 'The people of the vicinage are, apparently with few
exceptions, plain, dull and uninteresting, seeming to know nothing and
to care less about the marvelous things that are happening under their
very eyes, or even the history of their section. Inhabiting a rugged
country which exacts much hard labor for small pecuniary returns, they
go the round of their daily duty, and trouble themselves about nothing
except to get the usual modicum of food and sleep. Their rare occasions
of enjoyment are the days of the country fair, the elections, raisings,
huskings, and like country assemblages. Their religion is intolerant,
their sect Methodist; within the pale of which body all persons are
good, without which all are bad. The liberalising influences that in
more thickly settled localities have, for the past ten or twenty years,
seems to be unfelt in this region. Towards the heterodox these people
have no yearning bowels of compassion. Their weapons are both spiritual
and carnal; and I judge from the sad story of the Eddy children that
these zealots, if suddenly driven out of their beloved church, would
feel more at home under the wing of Mahomet than elsewhere, for when
prayer has failed of conversion they have resorted to fire and the lash
to bring the lamb within the fold'.

About the Eddys themselves, he stated: 'There is nothing about the
Eddys or their surroundings to inspire confidence on first
acquaintance. The brothers Horatio and William, who are the present
mediums, are sensitive, distant and curt to strangers, look more like
hard-working rough farmers than prophets or priests of a new
dispensation, have dark complexions, black hair and eyes, stiff joints,
a clumsy carriage, shrink from advances, and make newcomers feel ill at
ease and unwelcome. They are at feud with some of their neighbours, and
as a rule are not liked in Rutland
or Chittenden. They are in fact under the ban of public opinion that is
not prepared or desirous to study the phenomena as either scientific
marvels or revelations from another world'.

The length of Colonel Olcott's second stay at the farm enabled the true
story of the Eddy's lives to unfold itself in a more complete and
rational manner. He slowly started to understand that the effects he
recognised on his first tiny visit of five days; clumsiness, hostility
and suspiciousness, etc., were only the inevitable results of lives
rent with suffering and misfortune. The Eddys were not going to
immediately trust anyone; it took time to know them so that they would
feel comfortable in revealing things of a personal nature.

Olcott stated: 'When I say that my first reception by the family was
most inhospitable; that during my visit of five days I never felt sure
that at any moment I might not be requested to leave; that I was made
to feel like an intruder whose room was preferable to his company; that
I was struggling against all the prejudices one naturally would feel
against persons who claimed to be able to summon an army of spirits
from the other world; that I sat silent when members of the family made
ungracious and threatening speeches against persons who might
misrepresent them, clearly meaning me; that for fear my mission might
be cut short and my ability to do my duty to my employers destroyed, I
breathed not a word of my purpose to write for the newspaper, and left
the place without having had a single opportunity to draw out their
side of the story from the Eddys, the public has reason to admit that
in saying what I did in their favour, I was at least actuated by no
feelings of partiality'.In another material source that
I found and one that I was certainly not surprised to find out, Delia,
one of the sister mediums of the family, confided to a friend that they
certainly did know who Olcott was and who he represented; these were,
after all, some of the most powerful mediums in the country, of course
the spirits informed them of who he was. Delia went on to say that she
went up to Olcott on his first visit, and very pleasantly but almost
facetiously enquired of him whether he could do an article on her for
the newspaper. He was rendered speechless.

As the story of their lives unfolded itself, Olcott could easily see
that the Eddys had never done anything to deserve such blatant
reprobation from their neighbours and townsfolk, and he also discovered
in due course that many of the negative reports reflecting upon their
character were also discovered to be untrue and were born solely out of
hatred, ignorance and prejudice. One of the more suspicious stories
about the Eddy's stems from an accusation that they, many years before,
had given an actual exhibition of certain of the commoner tricks of
mediums, and charged money to do so. This, of course, was interpreted
by the simple-minded townspeople, prejudiced against anything that
smacked of diabolism, as the very reason why the family was so
forbidding towards strangers, they might be discovered in their
trickery which was furnishing them with a means of support.To this I add the following interesting report made by Epes Sargent:'some
ten years ago I satisfied myself by personal investigation of the
genuineness of the Eddy's mediumship, and my convictions were not
impaired by subsequent reports that two of them (he meant William and
Horatio) had turned against Spiritualism, and were professing to make
antagonistic exposures. It appears that in some Western town, finding
themselves utterly destitute of money and of the means of raising it,
friendless and longing for home, they were tempted by some unscrupulous
adviser to give exhibitions for the 'exposure' of the phenomena of
Spiritualism. This they did, and they got audiences and funds from the
foes of Spiritualism, which they could not get from the friends. But
the poor mediums were as helpless as was the ancient heathen medium,
Balaam, when called upon to curse: 'How shall I curse whom God hath not
cursed, or how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not defied?' Not one of
the marvels wrought by spirits could be exposed or explained by any
practical exhibition of trick or skill on the part of the two Eddys;
and these persons who had hoped to see Spiritualism finally shown up
and exploded, went home in a sadder but wiser mood. Now we must
exercise the largest charity for the moral weakness that led to such an
attempt by the mediums. Only he who has experienced the suffering of
extreme destitution is qualified to estimate their temptation'. They
also related the same story to Olcott later on when discussing their
lives.

When Olcott made his return trip to Chittenden, he had this to say:

'I was glad, when my second visit was so unexpectedly brought about,
that things were just as they had been at the beginning, for I had
heard all the evil stories in circulation and sifted them thoroughly,
and was in a condition of mind to do justice to people who had not
always acted so as to make friends, had few real ones, and fewer
opportunities granted to lay their pathetic tale before the world.It
was not because I had sympathy with their beliefs, nor that their
welfare was a matter of greater personal concern than that of any other
decent people, but because, in common with everyone else, my good
wishes went with the weak and oppressed, and this family had been
worried and torn by the spirit of intolerance, as a sheep by wolves.
Manhood revolts at the persecutions, cruelties, and indignities they
have been called to suffer in consequence of the direful inheritance of
mediumship that was bequeathed them in their blood - an inheritance
that made their childhood wretched, and, until recently, life itself a
burden'.

The Eddy Family History

Zephaniah Eddy, the father, was a farmer living at Weston, Vermont,
a few ridges and valleys to the south of Chittenden, and married Julia
Ann Macombs, a girl of Scottish descent, who was also of Weston. She
was first cousin to General Leslie Combs, of Kentucky,
who changed his name to its present form (Macombs), and was distantly
related to a noble Scottish family. About 1846, they sold their farm in
Weston and moved to the farm in Chittenden where soon after, Julia
would startle the neighbours and townsfolk with her amazing predictions
and visions. Very significant to the story is the fact that not
only was there an unbroken record of psychic power extending back over
several generations of the family, but Julia's great-great-great
grandmother was actually tried and sentenced to death at Salem for
alleged witchcraft in the dark days of 1692, but escaped to Scotland by
the aid of friends who rescued her from jail. Julia was clairvoyant,
although back then it was called 'second sight'. She saw and conversed
with spirits as commonly as though they were ordinary neighbours. She
would hold speech with them, hear them plainly address their
conversations back to her, and it seemed as if they followed her
wherever she went. To enter deep trance and become someone else was
nothing out of the ordinary for Julia. The neighbours though, lacking a
psychological framework to logically explain Julia's symptoms,
attributed them to the devil, a diagnosis Zephaniah came to share as
each successive child born, with the sole exception of the first, John,
who had the father's temperament, was born with Julia's peculiarities
and, at tender ages, started to exhibit traits and indications of
psychic power.

Zephaniah Eddy, to the grave and unimaginable misfortune of the
children, was a cruel, ignoramus brute, and a deeply bigoted
religionist. In their early married days, Julia would keep to herself
as best she could her inner revelations, refraining from ever
mentioning them to Zephaniah. It had been alleged though that the very
reason Zephaniah sold his farm and moved to this rugged, inhospitable
out of the way mountain town was because Julia's mediumship was
beginning to perturb the pragmatic Scotsmen of Weston. If this be so,
and, whatever the case may have been, it did not stem the tide in the
least of the psychic force which was growing as each successive child
was born. With the addition of Julia, a fully developed medium in her
own right, eventually, the entire house was filled with young,
developing mediums, the majority of them physical, and of cyclone power.

Throughout the Eddy story, not much is mentioned of certain members of
the family, and it seems as if they wanted to stay in the background
and especially out of the public eye, although they did, on most
occasions, add their battery strength when needed to the situations.
William and Horatio were eventually to become the most famous, if one
were to call it that, they certainly did not, the former for
materialization and the latter for dark circle phenomena, but there was
an older sister, Maranda, who, although taken from physical life at
only 35 years in 1871, was said by the family to have been, without
question, the most powerful medium of them all and believe me, that is
really saying a lot when we are considering this level of power.I
have discovered, from another source, that when Henry Olcott journeyed
to the Eddy farm in 1874, the family, originally thirteen in total
number were, at that time, reduced by marriage and death to five -
three sons and two daughters. Let me now, at this point in the
narrative, list the names of the Eddy family, then at least the readers
will know who is who from here on in. Except for John, all of them
mediums.In order of their dates of birth, there was
born to Zephaniah and Julia Eddy, John - 1832, Francis - 1834 (died
1862), Maranda - 1836 (died 1871), William - 1838, Sophia - 1840,
Horatio - 1842, Mary - 1844, James - 1846 (died 1862), Delia - 1849,
Daniel Webster - 1853, and lastly, Alice - 1857.

Early Manifestations, Spontaneous Phenomena and Portents

No matter how hard Julia had wished for or tried to keep from Zephaniah
the mysterious happenings - which must have been difficult for her
considering the fact that she herself was prone to trance out at any
given time - once the children were born there was no stopping the
continuous unfolding; the sequential, the sudden, the extraordinary and
the mystifying É the inevitable and unstoppable outcome of many mediums
under one roof. With the newborn children, clouds formed in their
rooms, and mysterious sounds would be heard; their cradles would rock
gently by themselves and voices whispered through the barren halls. As
time moved on, disembodied hands and faces began to appear and,
becoming increasingly clearer and more distinct were the ever-present
voices, full-bodied, calling to them from the darkness. In the very
early days, the children were extremely terrified and would huddle
together in one bed, shivering in fear. Thank goodness for Julia, for
she played the most important role of all in their early mediumistic
lives; she was the sole link in helping to bridge their realisation of
there being mysterious things happening about them, and their
understanding of inherited gifts as part of their lives. They would
play by the hour with beautiful children, visible only to their eyes
and their mother's, who brought them flowers and pet animals, and
romped right along with them. Once in a while, after they were all
tucked away in bed, their little bodies would be lifted gently and
floated through the air to different parts of the house, at times even
outside. The Eddys, I should point out, needed no development circle
or any of the standard procedures associated with the building of
mediumistic power by a circle, and so on. This was not the case. Every
day, living itself, was a continuous unfolding, a spontaneous rising
force. The manifestations would come at any given moment, without any
warning or discrimination whatsoever. The Eddy children, trying to be
normal, attended school but, of course, it was not meant to be. There
was rapping on the walls of the classroom, the chairs moved by
themselves, voices would suddenly speak as if out of nowhere, glasses
would be overturned, slates written on by invisible hands and the chalk
then thrown across the room, and the desks would levitate in the air. I
cannot even imagine how they must have felt, but the mayhem in this one
room schoolhouse escalated to the point where they were viciously
attacked and barred permanently from ever returning to school. William,
Horatio, and two or three of the Eddy girls had scarcely a month of
schooling in their entire lives.Not surprisingly,
especially in the lawless days of 1874, with the advent of being banned
from school for reasons that may have involved the devil itself, the
Eddys became the target of taunts, jeers, and were ridiculed
everywhere they went; they became the focus of inarticulate fears and
prejudices. The psychic force did not abate, and only increased in
strength.

Zephaniah would, on many occasions, look out to the open field where,
behind the house, William and Horatio would be playing when suddenly
there would be other boys and girls playing with them. When he advanced
threateningly, they would simply vanish like steam right in front of
him. When the late Alton Blackington, who did an extensive study on the
Eddy phenomena, interviewed a number of people in Rutland and
Chittenden back in 1944 in preparation for his radio broadcast about
the mediums, there was a man who well remembered the time he had called
on the Eddys, then young men, and found the brothers William and
Horatio working alone in the cornfield. He hadn't been there but a few
moments when 'two other figures' appeared out of nowhere and followed
the Eddys wherever they went.

The Ghostly Carriage

On a cold winter night in December, 1852, just before bed-time, the
family was gathered in the sitting room by the fire. According to
Colonel Olcott, who received the story directly from the Eddy family,
'suddenly they heard the noise of a carriage coming rapidly along the
road from the northward. The circumstance was so strange, the ground
being covered with snow which would prevent the noise of the wheels
being heard, that all went to the front window to look. A full moon,
shining bright on the new fallen snow, gave a lustre of mid-day to
objects below' and they saw an old fashioned, open carriage, drawn by a
pair of white horses with plumes on their heads, turn rapidly into the
yard and stop.

Rushing to the back door and flinging it open, there stood the equipage
before their astonished eyes. On the back seat was a lady, dressed in
Scottish plaid and furs, with a feather in her bonnet. She looked
kindly at them and bowed, but said nothing. On his high box sat the
driver, a thistle cockade in his hat and a capacious coat with a
standing collar muffling him to his chin. Every buckle and trapping of
the harness was plainly revealed by the moonlight, and even the
ornamental scroll-work on the coach panels.

The family, with characteristic rustic bashfulness, said nothing,
waiting for the grand lady to manifest her pleasure. No-one doubted for
an instant the reality of what they saw, and even the sceptical and
hard-hearted father moved to the door so as to be ready to do what
might be required for the belated traveler. But, as all
eyes were fixed upon her, she and her equipage began to fade. The
garden fence and other objects previously concealed behind the opaque
bodies of the carriage and horses began to show through, and in a
moment the whole thing vanished into the air, leaving the spectators
lost in amazement. Old Mr. Eddy at once exclaimed that his wife and her
mother had been up to some of their devilish witchcraft again; but they
knew it was the portent of somebody's death. The boys, then only ten or
twelve years of age, ran for the lantern and searched all over the road
and yard for wheel-tracks, but their quest was fruitless. The phantoms
had disappeared, without leaving the slightest impression on the snow.
Two months later the grandmother died.

Olcott learned later on, during one of the dark circles held at the
Eddy house from a spirit that the phantom lady was a Scottish
ancestress of Mrs. Eddy, who came to warn them of old Mrs. Macombs
death. Portents and warnings would occur before the death of each
member of the Eddy family, but always different from the predecessors,
and happening unexpectedly.

Other Ghostly Events & Warnings

Mrs Eddy died in 1873 after a lingering illness. During the whole time
she lay in bed, manifestations of spirits were frequent. When the
children would grow weary watching her throughout the night, she would
send them to bed under the pretence that she needed quiet, and they,
watching secretly, would see their dead sister, Maranda's spirit, in
full materialized form, doing the necessary bedside things for their
invalid mother. They would hear the two of them talking, and when it
was necessary to turn her, Maranda, with the help of other spirits,
would do it.

One day, while all were sitting at dinner, they all heard the soft
strains of music coming through the open door, and going outside, they
heard harp and flute coming from the corner of the house, which
eventually receded into the air. A week before the mother passed, her
own mother materialized in full form with a basket of white roses in
her hand to tell that Julia would soon come 'over the river' to her.
Horatio was absent from home just before her decease and was sent for.
Delia went to the table to write the letter of recall, and, leaving it
open while searching for an envelope, when she returned, it had a
postscript written on it from their spirit sister, Maranda, and signed
by her with her familiar autograph. Julia materialized before her
funeral and told Delia to remove the crepe they had hung on the front
door, there being, she said, occasion for rejoicing rather than for
mourning.

Of possible interest to others who do research on apparitions, there is, as a few examples, Robert Dale Owen's The Debatable Land Between This World and the Next,
which has on pages 328-329, etc., three cases of ghostly wagons and
carriages being heard in England and the United States, Catherine
Crowe's Night Side of Nature, the horse and cart apparitions seen in Haverhill, Massachusetts, p.413, and from Man's Survival After Death
by Charles Tweedale, pp.113-115, the phantom horse rider with his two
grooms running beside him. All of these examples are apparitions, but,
unlike the Eddy's, were not precursors of death.

Colonel Olcott (an interesting quote)

'I am well aware that the materialization of spirits, is what the
public is most anxious to hear about, but I cannot take up that phase
of the subject, before at least skimming the surface of this family
history for the other marvelous experiences to which its members have
been subjected. It would be like Columbus
returning from his gold hunt in the new country with no account of its
geography, fauna, flora or human inhabitants. The stories I am
recording were not gathered at appointed sittings, at which the
narrator might have been tempted to stretch fancy to help make literary
sensations; but in general social conversation, over our pipes around
the evening fire, as the discussion of varied topics drew them out. And
in every case they have been attested by more than one witness.
Interesting is it not that the comparison drawn by Olcott was actually Columbus and his discoveries in the New World.
Nothing could be more certain than the fact that while staying at the
Eddy farm in Chittenden, Olcott discovered another world'.

The Lady on the Horse, the Tolling Bell and the Ghostly Soldiers

The son James died of diphtheria in 1862 in the north room-front,
upstairs. A week before the event he asked his mother who the lady was
who came on a white horse to visit him. His mother thought that his
mind might be wandering due to illness, but he insisted that she came
every day at the same hour, tied her horse to the hitching-post and
came and sat in the room, waiting, as he said, for him to come to the
Spirit World with her. At this very time, Dr Ross, of Rutland,
the attending physician, prophesied the recovery of James, but the
mother instinctively knew that the phantom visitor was a portent of
death and sure enough, her fears were justified a few days later. The
very night he died he appeared to his brother-medium-William, then a
lad working in the dairy on a farm over in WestchesterCounty; William started for home before the next dawn and, when arriving home weeping bitterly, said he had come for the funeral.

The day before Maranda's death, the family was sitting at dinner, when
suddenly a heavy bell tolled once, in the air, right over their heads,
and slowly the reverberation pealed away as they all listened in
silence. Maranda announced to all that she saw brothers James and
Francis in the Spirit World and then stated that she wanted inscribed
on her tombstone the words, 'Not Dead But Risen. Why seek ye the Living
Among the Dead?'. Concerning Francis, while serving in the 5th Vermont
Volunteers during the late war, he caught a heavy cold which quickly
ran into consumption and he came home to die. He wrote in the family
Bible the exact day and hour of his passing. A fortnight prior to his
transition, the family was once again sitting by the fire and this time
heard a wagon pull up to the front door, heard the latch open, and saw
two soldiers bring a coffin in and place it in the entry, and then
drive off without saying a single word. On the coffin was a plate with
a name on it, which not being able to read in the obscurity they went
for a candle, but upon returning, it had slowly vanished. After Francis
entered the Spirit World they sent to Rutland
by a neighbour - obviously one of the friendlier ones - for his coffin,
and when it was brought, it was the exact counterpart of its spectral
double, to the very plate and nails.

When I first visited Chittenden myself in 1989, I stood in the family
plot of the Eddys in tiny Baird cemetery right down from the old
homestead. The original farmhouse may have been done over as such, but
believe me, time has not reshaped this little graveyard in the
slightest degree. The total and absolute reality of their beliefs and
way of life; the feeling of mediumship and the religion of Spiritualism
so obvious right there in front of you with the timeless 'ENTERED THE
WORLD OF SPIRITS' inscribed on Julia's and Maranda's headstones. On my
second visit in 1992, I found the resting places of William and
Horatio, further down, in the overgrown little Pittsford cemetery. As
it was near Halloween, I placed a pumpkin by the grave of William Eddy.
The birds sang merrily in the trees, and the wind bristled through the
hills and here, I thought to myself, lies, most likely, the greatest
materialization medium of the 19th century.

The Spinning Ghost

In the north room on the second floor of the Eddy house is where four
of the young boys slept. For years after she had passed to the spirit
world, old Mrs. Macombs, Julia's mother, would appear, and attend to
her spinning wheel as she used to. The wheel stood in the south-east
corner of the room, behind the door. The children were greatly
frightened at first to hear the 'click-click-click', and the buzzing
and see no-one, but they soon grew familiar with the thing, and
finally, to be sure that grandmother would awaken them, they hung a
little bell on the wheel. The phenomenon, which had greatly frightened
them at first so that they hid their small faces beneath the bed
coverings, had become a nightly diversion. After a while the spirit
fully materialised herself (let us not forget that there was four
physical mediums in the room - NRH), feebly at first but stronger by
degrees, until she would come looking exactly as when alive. The story,
according to Olcott, was attested to by every member of the Eddy
connection that he had seen, and the sketch represents the scene with
absolute accuracy.

Mending in the Arms of William.

In the Spring of 1863, the child of Sophia Eddy lay sick at the old
Eddy homestead, of lung fever. Her death was expected by all, and Delia
ironed a white dress and skirt for the little girl and laid them in the
mother's trunk. One evening Horatio went out to the penstock for water,
and, looking up, he saw his own room in the second story lighted up and
two strange old women walking about, shaking the invalid's dresses and
busying themselves in other preparations, apparently for the coming
death. He ran upstairs, he said, and upon opening the door, found a
table set in the middle of the floor, covered with a sheet taken from
the bed and on it the child's clothes, which had been removed from the
trunk in another room. The smoking wicks of two candles showed the
source of light he had observed.

Knowing by experience what this sort of thing meant, he came down and
told the watchers that the child would die. The mother, Delia, at once
fell into a violent convulsion, which ended in a dead faint. Meanwhile
Horatio had gone to the door and stood watching the re-lighting of the
candles and the moving about by the ghostly women, when, just as Sophia
had fainted, the light was extinguished, there was a rush of invisible
feet down the stairs and into the chamber, and the child soon began to
mend in the arms of William, who tended the little one with
affectionate care. They were afterwards told that it was fully expected
that the child would die, and spirit friends had gathered there to
receive her, but the mother's alarming condition induced them to unite
their efforts to keep alive the flickering spark of life.An
interesting quote by Henry Olcott concerning the 'Phantom Carriage'
mentioned earlier is the following: 'The literal accuracy of the sketch
of the ghostly carriage, has been endorsed on three separate occasions
since its appearance in the Daily Graphic, by what claimed to
be spirits, who addressed me in audible voice - one of the three being
Mrs. Julia Eddy herself - and all three assert that the apparition was
sent by a guardian spirit. I know the full value of words,' Olcott went
on to say, 'and I mean to say unequivocally that a woman 'a breathing,
walking, palpable woman, as palpable as any other woman in the room,
recognised not only by her sons and daughters, but also by neighbours
present, as Mrs. Zephaniah Eddy, deceased 29 December, 1872 - on the
evening of 2 October, 1874, walked out of the cabinet where there was
only one mortal, and where, under ascertained circumstances, only this
one man could have been at the time, and spoke to me personally in
audible voice. And nineteen other persons saw her at the same time, and
heard her discourse'.

For Colonel Olcott, a man of clear brain and high intelligence, his
experiences at the Eddy farm were nothing less than spellbinding and
were his maiden voyage into this mysterious other world; his articles
in the Daily Graphic hit like thunder. Future parts of this
article will deal exclusively with the materialisation and dark circle
phenomena at the Eddy house, a short segment on the séances held out in
the woods at 'Honto's Cave', and everything else I can possibly fit
into the article. Thanks to the insight of Mr. Olcott in his 'leave no
stone unturned' process, most of the spirits that manifested were able
to be sketched by the artists he employed.

The Building Rage of Zephaniah - Their Darkest Days

With each passing moment, the mediumistic powers of the young family
members slowly and steadily unfolded and increased in intensity, as did
the rage of Zephaniah who, at first thinking that he must be bereft of
his senses, now knew that he was not; there were too many instances now
where he himself was seeing the actual figures materialising.In
vain, he stormed and threatened, but all went on. He called his equally
pious neighbours together - Harvey Pratt, Rufus Sprague, Sam Parker,
Sam Simmons, Charles Powers, and Anson Ladd - all of them ignorant,
imbecilic brutes, and they prayed and prayed that this curse might be
removed from the house; praying to abate the nuisance, or, as Zephaniah
styled it, to 'cast the devil out of his ungodly wife and children',
and, that failing, he moved to more stern, verbally threatening
coercive measures, and that proved equally inefficacious. One of the
great mysteries to me in these spiritual and mediumistic matters is how
Natural Laws - the respecter of no man, regardless of age - progress
forward with absolutely no exceptions. In the case of these young
mediums, as innocent to the understanding of their own inherited gifts
as the freshly fallen snow, surrounded by violent, ignorant maniacs,
their psychic force only increased all the more, as did their peril.

Soon, physical blows replaced prayers, and to get the evil spirits out
of them, Zephaniah endlessly beat the youngsters until he made scars on
their backs that, according to Olcott who saw the wounds, 'they will
carry to their graves'. Their early lives could not have been worse. If
the father would come upon any of the family members in trance - which,
unfortunately for William he did on many occasions - they would be
beaten with a rawhide strap or pounded with his fists all over their
body. The mediums suffered incomprehensibly afterwards, because seldom,
if ever, did they come out of trance while being 'lambasted' by Mr Eddy.

Unconcerned with the sorrowful pleading of Julia, William and Horatio
were, on many occasions, taken out and chained to trees in the deep
woods; starved for days, and kept out of the house. William Eddy
related to Henry Olcott while he was at the farm an incident that turns
my skin cold for it was one of the most vicious things I have ever
heard. One time, as a means to bring William out of a deep trance,
Zephaniah, with the aid of his thug of a friend, Anson Ladd, punched
and slapped William in the head repeatedly, and when this failed, they
poured scalding water down his back and, as a last heroic operation,
took a blazing ember from the hearth and fire branded his head with it.
William, thank God, never came out of his trance, but the effect of
this horrible cruelty was the great scars on his head and chest that he
showed Olcott while telling him the story.

'So year after year', Olcott said, 'things went on, full of trouble and
sorrow for all in the unhappy house. No wonder I found them 'Curt,
repellent', and 'sensitive', and suspicious and calculated to arouse
suspicion. I think I would be likewise under the circumstances'. Olcott
was starting to really understand the story of their unfortunate lives.
Unimaginably, this was only the beginning of an even more terrible
odyssey which was about to befall them.

The Darkness is Falling

The year was 1857. For many years now, a great excitement was being
caused throughout the Northeast by the Fox sisters and their phenomena.
They had ushered in a new dispensation. Spiritualism. Additionally,
Jonathan Koons in nearby Athens County, Ohio, between the years 1852
and around 1855, was causing quite a stir with the public
demonstrations of mediumship he was holding in a log cabin he had built
on his property; add to this the Tippie family, two or three miles
distant from them, who held similar demonstrations. Psychic prodigies
were springing up everywhere.Realising that he had a
very valuable commodity, Zephaniah contacted an unscrupulous, money
grabbing traveling agent, and did what any ordinary sociopath would do
in the circumstances, he sold four of his own children to him; William,
19 years old, Horatio, 15, and their two sisters, Sophia, 17, and
little Mary, only 13 years old; the contract was signed and off they
went to be exhibited as mediums for money.

Book of Martyrs

From Horatio Eddy's own diary, dated November, 1867, came the following sad tale:
'This day . . . we suffered very much by severe tying and abuse from
those who professed to be Spiritualists. But we like martyrs, bore our
pain with fortitude. We thanked the Divine Power for preserving us from
the gross treatment of our enemies. No mortal knows what brutish tying
we submitted ourselves to. It would have made mother's heart bleed if
she had known what her children were passing through in Canastota'.
Olcott stated in People From the Other World that: 'The reader
will please observe that I have not relied upon the diaries or verbal
statements of the Eddys themselves in making these strictures, but
solely upon the testimony of the editorial descriptions of the whole
press, for the journals of nearly every section are represented in this
modern Book of Martyrs. Such details of the handcuffing and ligatures,
the blistering and acid corrosions, the torture of constrained
positions, of mouth-gags and halter nooses, as the newspapers did not
supply, I have filled in after getting the necessary explanations from
the mediums, and the drawings were made from life'.

The four Eddy teens were systematically marched from one state to
another by this showman, and made to demonstrate their powers, or
trickery as it was in most cases assumed, while their enemies, in brute
force, tried everything in their powers to torture or constrain them to
prove, by so doing, that the powers could not then manifest. It was
nothing short of sadism, pure and simple.

During the course of these demonstrations, or whatever they were, the
mediums were usually bound and gagged, often to an inhuman degree; at
times their lips were sealed with hot wax - the scars of which they
carried for the rest of their lives; all four of them were nailed into
suffocating boxes resembling miniature coffins - all of these brutish
practices done to ensure the fact that the manifestations were not
coming from the mediums. The illustrations show some of the various
tortures they were made to endure. Whether at private residences, on
stage or otherwise, they were forced to hold many positions, pinioned,
manacled or gagged for, in many cases, hours at a time. As a test to
prove the depth of their trances, they were routinely pinched, their
skin twisted and pricked with needles or sharp wires.When
not on stage, their torment and peril was even worse, having to face
mass protesters; religious fanatics, sceptics and groups of rowdy
drunks and violent bands of thugs who felt they had been bilked out of
their money by tricksters. Olcott said that the hands, arms and wrists
of the sisters as well as the brothers were permanently scarred with
marks of ligatures, burning wax, and parts of their flesh pinched out
by handcuffs. They were routinely attacked, shot at, beaten, stoned and
chased out of town in certain areas. William and Mary showed Olcott
their scars from gunshot wounds in the ankle and the arm; Horatio was
stabbed, broke a finger and was once hit by a brick in the head which
was thrown from above. Their cabinet - exactly similar to the Davenports, with its three doors - was smashed to pieces by furious mobs on several occasions. William was once caught by thugs in Cleveland,
ridden on a rail like a circus freak and, was it not for a desperate
last minute rescue, would have been actually tarred and feathered. In Danvers, Massachusetts they were nearly killed when fired upon by zealots who believed them to be agents of the devil.

On and on it went for years on end. For a brief period, they were rented out to another agent who took them on a brief tour of Europe,
the records of which I would love to find. How they ever survived
fifteen straight years of this I will never know, but they did, and the
manifestations throughout were absolutely extraordinary. I have
personally never read, or have heard of any viable or honestly
legitimate account of these young mediums having ever been caught in
fraud.

There
is a quote by Colonel Olcott which I think the readers will find
interesting. He said: 'The story of the persecutions, mobbing,
hardships and trials through which the Eddy children were obliged to
pass, carries a moral with it, which the intelligent reader can hardly
have overlooked. It must have been apparent that we are not dealing
with the case of charlatans who have recently taken to the business of
trickery for the sake of gain, for these girls and boys seem to have
inherited the peculiar temperaments from their ancestry, and the
phenomena common to most genuine 'mediums' of the present day, attended
them in their very cradles. It will scarcely be said that children who,
like Elisha, were caught up and conveyed from one place to another, and
in whose presence weird forms were materialised as they lay in their
trundle-beds, were playing pranks to tax the credulity of an observant
public, which was ignorant of their very existence. It will not be
seriously urged, I fancy, against youth, whose bodies were scored with
the lash, cicatrized by burning wax, by pinching manacles, by the
knife, the bullet and boiling water, who were starved, driven to the
woods to save their lives from paternal violence; who were forced to
travel year after year and exhibit their occult powers for others'
gain; who were mobbed and stoned, shot at and reviled; who could not
get even an ordinary country school education like other children, nor
enjoy the companionship of boys and girls of their own age - it will
not be urged against such as these that they were in conspiracy to
deceive, when they had everything to gain and nothing to lose by
abandoning the fraud and being like other folk. The idea is
preposterous; and we must infer that, whatever may be the source of the
phenomena, they are at least objective and not subjective - the result
of some external force, independent of the medium's wishes, and
manifesting itself when the penalty of its manifestation was to subject
the unfortunates to bodily torture and mental anguish'.

Well said, indeed. As terrible as their lives were, it is nonetheless
of the highest evidential nature that if they were not in fact, genuine
mediums, why would they have subjected themselves to such utter danger
and peril? How much more can really be said I ask you?Zephaniah
Eddy, accompanied by the sadness of absolutely no-one, passed away in
1862. The tumultuous journey of the Eddy brothers and sisters finally
ended in 1872, and they made their weary selves back to the homestead
farm and the waiting arms of their mother. Their sorrow unfortunately
did not end here for Julia, their one loyal and trusted friend through
thick and thin, passed to the world of spirits in December of that year.

Is it any wonder at all that by the time Olcott had arrived at the
farm, he noticed them to be hostile, scorned men and women, who
basically trusted no-one Ð at least, not at first. These were
individuals who had been sold out every step of the way, starting with
their own father. The Eddys though, were tough, sturdy farmers -
William and Horatio as strong as oxen - and they, in the most
honourable sense, protected and brought home safely their sisters
through the endless perils they had faced. They had made it home,
battered and forlorn, but together, and with the help and aid of their
loyal and steadfast spirit friends.

Now back at home, with Zephaniah safely out of the way, at peak
mediumistic power and having the situation at last completely under
their own control, it was decided that they would construct an upper
section to the back of the farmhouse, to be used specifically as a
circle-room to demonstrate their mediumship through public séances.
They would, more or less, turn their house into a way-side inn, take in
boarders and charge a modest fee, usually eight to ten dollars a week
if even that. Those who were poor, which many of their clientele were,
were charged nothing. When word of the Eddy manifestations got out, the
farmhouse was besieged by visitors and the mediums were inundated with
letters from all over the country. It was altogether impossible to
accommodate everyone and many, even after having travelled great
distances to come to Chittenden, were, for one reason or another,
flatly turned away at the door. Houdini, I am very happy to say, was
one of these unfortunates; there were many of your standard 'wolves in
sheep's clothing' types, and many were duly thrown out, only to usually
proclaim the Eddys as frauds afterwards.The
circle-room, which would eventually become one of the most famous in
all of Spiritualism, was finally finished in December, 1873, and
officially opened to the public on January 1st, 1874. The opening
séance started with a dark-circle at which the spirit, George Dix - one
of the controls - in independent voice, gave a lengthy and dramatic
dedicatory address.

Following this there was a materialisation séance where prayers and
addresses were given by fully materialised spirits starting with Julia
Eddy herself, Mrs. Eaton - another one of the controls  Mrs.
Wheeler, and lastly, a Dr. Horton, late of Utica, New York, who stepped
forward, fully materialised with his two baby children in his arms, and
addressed his widow who was sitting in the audience. The elder of the
children, little Minna Horton, slowly eased herself down from her
father's arms and, as the living embodiment of an angel itself, quietly
stepped forward and spoke words of comfort to her mother who was
weeping uncontrollably. Since that first historic and eventful
evening at the opening of the circle-room, the Eddys, with William and
Horatio as chief mediums, and with the aid of the others where needed,
held circles every single evening, with the sole exception of Sundays.
In light of the usual serious exhaustion associated with this type of
phenomena, it attests even further to the absolutely extraordinary
power and stamina of these mediums, especially William, who sat for
materialisation. On yet another note, they usually worked in the
fields, and carried on with their rugged farm chores in the daytime.The Eddy house was eventually to be called 'The Spirit Capitol of the Universe', and also Spirit Vale.

Eddy Brothers - Physical Mediums Part 2

Observations, Light & Dark Circle Phenomena and Full Form Materialization

My main concern is the eye-witness accounts of the manifestations
produced by William and Horatio Eddy in their circle room séances, held
nightly for the public at their farm. The main emphasis, and for good
reason, will be on Henry Olcott's work, but to add evidential weight
and balance there will be included additional accounts by Mrs. M.D.
Shindler and Epes Sargent - whose work I mentioned by name in Part 1 -
and within these, there are additional reports which had been made by
others who had also witnessed the phenomena such as J.M. Peebles and
Mr. Henry Lacroix through the famous Boston Spiritualist publication, The Banner of Light (Founded, 1857).

Colonel Henry Olcott was a pioneer in the truest sense of the word, his
investigation into the Eddy phenomena predated the work of Geley,
Crawford, Crookes, Madame Bisson and Schrenk-Notzing, to name just a
few of the weighty names associated with research into the scientific
aspects of physical mediumship. The phenomena of fully materialized
spirit forms - of which the Eddy Brothers probably have never been
excelled - is so startling and extraordinary in its nature, that
Olcott's reporting was met with extreme incredulousness and shock;
manifestations seemingly regulated by no known law - as of yet - above
and beyond even the understanding of science and the laws of nature,
were being produced not only through two rude farmers, but ones that
were supposedly unmannered and illiterate besides.

The Mediumistic Gifts Of The Eddy Family, In General. By Henry Olcott.

'It is scarcely exaggeration to say that this family of mediums, if we
may believe their story, is the most remarkable as to psychological
endowments of which mention is made in the history of European races. The
phases of mediumship represented by the family members were rappings;
the disturbance of material objects from a state of rest; painting in
oil and water-colors under influence; prophecy, the speaking of strange
tongues; the healing gift; the discernment of spirits; levitation, or
the floating of the body in free air; the phenomena of instrument
playing and the show of hands; the writing of messages on paper up
borne in mid-air, by pencils held by detached hands; Psychometry, or
the reading of character and view of distant persons upon touching
sealed letters; clairvoyance; clairaudience, or the hearing of
spirit-voices; and lastly, and most miraculous of all (as Olcott stated
it), the production of materialized phantom forms, that become visible,
tangible, and often audible by all persons present.

The Phenomena Produced By William And Horatio Eddy In The Circle-Room:

(1) The materialization of spirit-forms in the second story of the house;

(2) The showing of materialized hands; the 'ring test' (which I will
explain), writing of names of deceased persons upon cards, by detached
hands; and playing on instruments in the light; which usually happen in
a circle held at the conclusion of the materialization circle. (3) The
playing of musical instruments; voices; the sound of heavy dancing; the
moving of ponderous bodies; the floating of musical instruments through
the air; the noise of struggles and sword combats between two
combatants; the flashing of phosphorescent lights; the touching and
patting of our persons by supposed spirit-hands; a concert of musical
instruments, numerous enough to require the aid of at least four
performers; solo-playing on the harmonicon, accordion, violin, flute,
guitar, or concertina; the improvisation of rhymes by a voice, upon a
subject named by any person present; whistling; the imitation of a
storm at sea, with the whistling and roaring of the gale, the force of
the waves, the sucking pumps - all these in a darkened room'.

Olcott: 'Much account has been made of the story told by Lord Dunraven
and Lord Adair (and, I may mention, confirmed to me personally by the
later gentleman), of Mr. Home's having been 'floated' out of one third-
story window at Ashley House and into another; but what will be thought
of Horatio Eddy having been carried, one summer night, when he was but
six years old, a distance of three miles to a mountain top, and left to
find his way home next day as best he could; of his youngest brother
Webster, when a grown man, being carried out of a window and over the
top of a house from the presence of three witnesses (from two of whom I
have the story), and landed in a ditch a quarters of a mile off; of
William being carried to a distant wood and kept there unconscious for
three days, and then carried back again; of Horatio being 'levitated'
twenty-six evenings in succession, in Buffalo, in Lyceum Hall, when
fast bound to a chair, and hung by the back of the chair to a
chandelier hook in the ceiling, and then safely lowered again to his
former place on the floor? Of Mary Eddy being raised to the ceiling of
Hope Chapel, in New York City, where she wrote her name?'

Quotable Quote

'Let any fair man stay at the Eddy house for a week or two, take time
to hear both sides of every story, and watch what occurs, and, my word
for it, he will carry away food for reflection to last him the rest of
his natural life'. (Henry S. Olcott, October, 1874).

A Motley Crowd

The impression that is given by every account is that the Eddy house
and grounds were generally thronged with people. They themselves could
only board just so many in the house so many others had to fend for
themselves in the nearby hamlets. Nonetheless, Mrs. Shindler stated
that there were, when she was there, almost fifty people boarding at
the house.Henry Olcott's description of, or better yet,
perspective of the visitors he saw at the homestead while there is one
of the most classic statements of Spiritualism. After describing the
stupendous beauty of the surrounding hills and green pastures Olcott,
leading up though his statement says:'But there appears
to be slight evidence that this scenery has exercised an ennobling
effect upon the inhabitants. They are usually a prosaic set, and I have
vainly watched for any responsive glow when I have called their
attention to the natural beauties around us. The Eddys themselves form
rather an exception to the rule. True, they waste no enthusiasm upon
their familiar hills and valley, but the tenderness of their hearts is
shown in the gathering of pet pigeons, dogs, parrots, ducks, and
chickens, about them, and their innate refinement, by the hours
snatched from menial toil, to water and trim their plants and flowers .
. . English visitors to this place would find abundant relaxation is
the long walks or mountain climbing, but we Americans avail ourselves
little of the privilege . . . but the minds of the people who come from
far and near to this Vermont homestead, are so bent upon the pursuit of
the marvelous, that all day long they sit and talk of last night's
circle and past wonderful experiences, until one fairly gets a surfeit
of the subject.

They are a motley crew, in sooth. Ladies and gentlemen; editors,
lawyers, divines and ex-divines; inventors, architects, farmers;
peddlers of magnetic salves and mysterious nostrums; long haired men
and short haired women; the 'crowing hens' of Fowler, and the cackling
cocks, their fitting mates; women with an idea, and plenty of men and
women without any to speak of; people of sense and people of nonsense;
sickly dreamers who prate of 'interiors' and 'conditions' and 'spheres'
as intelligently as a learned pig or a chattering magpie; clairvoyants
and 'healers', real and bogus; phrenologists, who read bumps without
feeling them, under 'spirit direction'; mediums for tipping, rapping,
and every imaginable form of modern phenomena; 'apostles' with one and
two arms; people from the most distant and widely-separated localities;
nice, clever people whom one is glad to meet and sorry to part from;
and people who shed a magnetism as disagreeable as dirty water or the
perfume of the Fetis-Americanus. They come and go, singly and
otherwise; some after a day's stay, convinced that they have been
cheated, but the vast majority astounded and perplexed beyond
expression by what their eyes have seen and their ears heard.
Through all, the family jog on in the even tenor of their unsystematic
way, receiving newcomers with distrust, and letting life slide after a
happy-go-lucky fashion. Those who stay longest with them have the most
confidence in their mediumship, for they discover that their external
misanthropy and curtness are the outcome of years of sorrow and
injustice, the result of poor education and bad training. More than any
man I have ever met, William Eddy lives an interior life; and to be in
relation, of supposed relation, with the people of the Silent Land,
seems as natural to him as it was to the ecstatic of the early
centuries of the recluses of Brahma'.

Before moving on to the circle-room manifestations, I want to add to
this work a few important issues which were brought to light in
Olcott's work, People From The Other World. Those who are
interested in this field of research and the historical aspects of
Spiritualism and physical mediumship will especially find it
significant. Olcott: 'The Salem witchcraft tragedies were followed
by such a reaction, that tardy justice was done to the families of the
victims of the popular frenzy, and nothing was said about
supernaturalism - at least nothing, I think, that aroused general
interest - until the present dispensation was ushered in at the little
cabin of Michael Weekman, in 1847, where, in the family of John D. Fox,
its then lessee, there bubbled up a tiny spring that is now so great a
river. The raps and poundings which will always be known as the
'Rochester Knockings' and forever perpetuate the memory of Kate and
Margaret Fox, were followed by many other and more wonderful forms of
manifestation, such as the lifting of heavy bodies, the phenomenal
increase and diminution of their normal weight (the lightest articles
acquiring marvelous ponderosity and the heaviest equally notable
levity), the ringing of bells, the playing of unseen performers on
instruments, and, finally, by the materialization of spirit-hands,
faces, and full forms.

At the same time, however, that these things were going on and the
attention of the civilized world was arrested by them, similar
phenomena were happening in other private families. The Davenports, of Buffalo, N.Y.,
were having some slight premonitions of the future career they were
destined for, but the physical manifestations did not occur in their
presence until February, 1855. A year before this the Koons family, of Athens County, Ohio,
had instrumental and vocal concerts by the spirits, and materialized
hands wrote communications. But the Eddys tell me that they had been
seeing materialized spirit-forms from their childhood, and their mother
before them, and, in the absence of conflicting evidence, I suppose
that the credit will have to be awarded to them of witnessing the first
instances of this highest form of physical manifestation, occurring in
our time.

One evening, in March, 1872, the Eddy family were sitting about the
fire, when an event occurred that ushered in the series of
materializations that have culminated in the public séances now given
nightly. William had cut his foot very badly with an axe, and was
confined to his bed in an adjoining room. Suddenly, without warning,
the grandmother's spirit in full materialized form appeared at the
threshold, and gave instruction for some salves to apply to the wound,
and a cooling draught to abate the fever that had set in; after which
she disappeared. Shortly after this, when Delia Eddy was engaged in
reducing some maple-sugar over the kitchen fire, the spirit of a man of
short stature suddenly materialized himself, frightening her so that
she dropped a pan of sugar she was carrying. The spirits then told the
family that William was to be developed as the greatest medium of the
age, and that he must no longer sit for the instrument playing
exhibitions, as he had been doing for a number of years, but must go
into the cabinet or closet alone and take no bells or instruments with
him'.

Quotable Quote

'I did not content myself with merely attending the séances of these
famous brothers, but watched them continually at their daily tasks, and
in their hours of relaxation, and am firmly persuaded that all their
manifestations were perfectly genuine. Especially did William impress
me as a man of singular honesty and simplicity of character; too
guileless to protect himself from the wiles and snares of others. I
loved him as one of God's chosen instruments to bless and comfort the
mourning hearts of those whose friends had been taken out of their
sight'. (M.D. Shindler).

The Circle Room

This room had three windows on each side, 13 feet 9 inches from the
ground. Olcott stated that there was no ladder on the premises. For the
use of carpenters engaged in making some small repairs, one had been
borrowed from another farmer in the neighbourhood. There was one door
of entrance into the séance room, situated next to the main part of the
house. The circle room was 37 feet 6 inches long and 17 feet wide, with
a ceiling 9 feet 2 inches high in the centre, and 6 feet 11 inches at
the sides. At the farther end was the kitchen chimney, 2 feet 7 inches
by 3 feet 4 inches, in the centre of the gable. To the right of the
chimney was a closet of the same depth - 2 feet 7 inches - and a length
of 7 feet, with a window in it, 2 feet 6 inches from the floor, and
having a 2 feet 2 inches by 2 feet 3 inches opening. The door to the
closet - this was William's cabinet - was 5 feet 9 inches high by 2
feet wide. The ceiling of the cabinet at the chimney end was 7 feet 2
inches, and 5 feet at the other end, where the roof sloped (over where
William sat). Three sides of the cabinet were lath and plaster; the
fourth the solid brick wall of the chimney. There were no panels to
slide, and no loose boards in the floor to lift.Every
inch of the cabinet was tight and solid. Outside the cabinet there was
a platform as long as the width of the room, and 6 feet 7 inches wide
in its widest part, and was elevated 231 inches above the general floor
level. Along its outer edge ran a balustrade, or handrail, 2 feet 6
inches high, making the height from the floor of the room to the top of
the rail, 4 feet 5 inches. The outside measurements of this particular
section of the Eddy house corresponded with the circle room Olcott
stated.

For six months after the hall had been built, there was no window in
the cabinet, but one evening during the excessively hot weather in
July, the medium fainted upon coming out of the stifling cabinet, and a
window was cut shortly after. A medium can handle just so much. This
window, in consequence of insinuations of its possible use for the
introduction of costumes and confederates (and what of the numerous
manifestations prior to cutting the window?), Olcott obtained
permission to completely seal up, which he did by tacking a fine
mosquito netting over the frame outside, and sealed it with wax stamped
with his signet. This precaution made absolutely no difference in what
occurred inside the circle room. He examined the netting every day
until he left the Eddy house, and found it just as he had left it.The
audience occupied two or three uncomfortable straight benches and, on
occasion, a chair was set up front for Olcott to the right of the
benches (see floor plan). The circles were held by night and the only
illumination was by a feebly lit kerosene lamp placed at the southeast
end of the room. Olcott, who constantly questioned himself on whether
he was being meticulous enough in his investigation I really believe
had no idea just how thorough he was; little did he then realize that
it would end up being considered one of the most thoroughly conducted
investigations ever on record along these lines.

He hired a man, O.F. Morrill, of Chelsea, Mass., a mechanic, inventor and carpenter, to examine every inch of William's cabinet and, in brief, stated:

'I hereby certify, that, at the request of and in company with Mr. H.S.
Olcott, I have examined thoroughly the walls, window, ceiling and floor
of William H. Eddy's 'cabinet', and the floor of the platform upon
which it opens, and that there is no possible means by which
confederates could be introduced into the said cabinet, except through
the open door, in full face of the audience; nor any place where
costumes or apparatus could be stored. Furthermore, that after
witnessing numerous materializations by alleged spirits, he is
perfectly satisfied that the phenomena, whatever may be their origin,
are not produced by jugglery, the personation of characters by William
Eddy, or by chemical or mechanical device' (signed, O.F. Morrill).

After some singing and light dancing in the circle room, the people
would then be invited to seat themselves on the benches, and William
Eddy would then mount the platform and hang a thick shawl over the
cabinet door, enter it and sit down on his chair. The lamp would then
be turned down very dimly, the sitters in the front row would be
requested to join hands, and a violinist (sometimes flute or even
accordion) placed at the extreme right of the row and nearest the
platform, would play on his instrument. All would then be anxious
expectation. Presently, the curtain would stir, would be pushed aside,
and a form would step out on to the platform and face the audience.

Henry Olcott: 'Seen in the obscurity, silent and motionless, appearing
in the character of a visitor from beyond the grave, it is calculated
to arouse the most intense feelings of awe and terror in the minds of
the timid; but happily the idea is so incomprehensible, the supposition
so unwarrantable, even absurd, that at first most people
(automatically) choose to curiously inspect the thing as a masquerading
pleasantry on the part of the man they saw only a moment before, enter
the cabinet'.In other words, most of them simply
could not comprehend or believe what they were seeing because it was so
incredible. Olcott then stated: 'The first impression is that there is
some trickery; for to think otherwise is to do violence to the world's
traditions from the beginning until now; besides which the feeling of
terror is lessened by the apparition being seen by each person in
company with numerous other mortals like himself, and the locked hands
and touching shoulders on each side soon begets confidence. If the
shape is recognized it bows and retires, sometimes after addressing
words in an audible whisper or natural voice, as the case may be, to
its friends, sometimes not. After an interval of two or three minutes
the curtain is again lifted, and another form, quite different in sex,
gait, costume, complexion, length and arrangement of hair, height and
breadth of body, and apparent age, comes forth, to be followed in turn
by others and others, until after an hour or so the session is brought
to a close, and the medium reappears with haggard eyes and apparently
much exhausted'.

After only his third séance, in a letter to Epes Sargent, published in Proof Palpable of Immortality, Olcott stated:'I
have seen shapes of Indian men* and women and white persons, old and
young, each in different dress, to the number of thirty-two; and I am
told by respectable persons who have been here a long while that the
number averages about twelve a night. The Eddys have sat continuously
for a year, and are wearied in body and mind by the incessant drain
upon their vital force, which is said to be inevitable in these
phenomena. For want of a better explanation I may as well state that
the Eddys claim that the manifestations are produced by a band of
spirits, organized with a special director, mistress of ceremonies,
chemist, assistant chemists, and dark and light circle operators'.

Quite a number of Indian spirits materialized themselves every night at
the Eddys for Mrs. Eddy was, it was said, a noble, generous woman, who
cherished the most friendly relations with these red men and women when
in the flesh, and one winter kept in her house a whole family of them
that might otherwise have perished from the bitter cold.

Henry Olcott's First Séance: 17 September, 1874

'I reached Chittenden on my present mission, Sept. 17, 1874, and
attended a circle the same evening. Outside a violent gale of wind was
blowing, the clouds hung low, the rain fell, and the atmospheric
conditions seemed unfavourable. A company of twenty-five persons
assembled in the circle room, among them several who, like myself, had
arrived that day. Shortly after seven o'clock, William entered the
cabinet, and we waited expectantly for our weird visitors. To promote
harmony of feeling among the persons present, vocal and instrumental
music was resorted to, continuity of sound and rapidity of time seeming
to be more necessary than quality of execution.We had
not sat many minutes in our first circle before a voice - the piping
treble of an old woman - addressed to us some remarks from behind the
curtain . . . to the effect that this was a bad night for
manifestations, and none but the strongest of spirits could show
themselves'.

Olcott was suspicious at first, thinking that William was simply
speaking in falsetto, but eventually learned from experience - having
seen her materialized on several occasions and address him personally -
that Mrs. Eaton was one of the controls/cabinet spirits of William
Eddy; she will be mentioned on and off throughout the story, and so
will this next famous little squaw of energy and vivaciousness. The
curtain presently stirred, and the Indian woman named Honto, stepped on
the platform. She was, according to Olcott, 'young, dark complexioned,
of marked Indian features, lithe and springy in movement, full of fun,
natural in manner, and full of inquisitiveness'.

Olcott, in his drive to be as exact as possible, painted a scale, full
length down the side of the cabinet door. Honto measured 5 feet 3
inches and bore not the slightest resemblance to William Eddy (having
seen her at least thirty times or more while there, Olcott said). Honto
would change her dress frequently, sometimes appearing in a dark skirt
with light overdress, shaped like the garment called a polonaise;
sometimes with shades of colour reversed; sometimes with light clothing
throughout with a sash around her waist, or bands over her bosom;
sometimes with a cap, and at others bareheaded; sometimes with her
black hair a yard or more in length, flowing over her shoulders, and
again with it braided in a single rope down her back. The list is
almost endless with what this little energy ball could do; at certain
times she even had phosphorescent buttons gleaming in the obscure light
like diamonds. Honto was indeed one of the stars of the show.

Olcott stated: 'The sketch (I have drawn), represents one of the
phenomena attending the appearance of this spirit-girl, and what I
witnessed on the evening in question. Honto steps either to the wall or
to one of the two persons  Mrs. R. Cleveland and Mr. E.V. Pritchard,
of Albany, N.Y.
- who usually occupy chairs on the platform, and suddenly produces a
knitted shawl or a long piece of gauzy fabric, apparently from the air
itself, and exhibits it to the audience. She threw the slender fabric
over the railing, and so gave us an opportunity to see that its strands
were perfectly opaque (on some illustrations the railing on the
platform has been omitted by the artist). Then throwing it over her
head as a Spanish women wears her mantilla, she produced another,
woolen, black and apparently striped; and then passed both behind the
curtain. Mrs. Cleveland was allowed to come up and feel the beating of
Honto's heart; the bare flesh of her chest was cold and yet moist; the
breast was a woman's, and the heart beat feebly yet rhythmically; the
same pulsation was felt in the wrist. After Honto retired, various
other spirits of Indians and whites (among the latter two little
children) appeared before us . . . the next was that of a dark faced
squaw, who calls herself 'Bright Star'. She is shapely, tall,
well-proportioned, and of a dignified carriage . . . next came
'Daybreak', another squaw, dressed in dark costume, who danced to the
playing of the violin, and then suddenly passed into the cabinet . . .
then came 'Santum', whose appearance as regards stature and bulk is
calculated to excite surprise. He measures 6 feet 3 inches tall, full
half a foot taller than the medium; his dress appears to be a
hunting-shirt of dressed buckskin, stripped perpendicularly and fringed
at the seams, leggings of the same and fringed the same, a feather in
his head, and sometimes he wears a powder-horn, slung by a belt across
his shoulder.After Santum came two
other Indian men, and then several whites made their bow to the
audience. The first of these was William H. Reynolds, Utica, N.Y.,
a Colonel in the 14th N.Y. Artillery who died May 6th, 1874, of
injuries. He was dressed in black and wore a full beard . . . his shirt
was white . . . this spirit was followed by his brother, John E.
Reynolds, who died in 1860. He wore a dark suit but no beard, but a
moustache . . . then young Steven R. Hopkins, a lad of fifteen, with
light curly hair. We were next favoured with the appearance in the
cabinet door, of the tall figure of the late William Brown, of York, Pa.
He is the father of Edward Brown, who married the medium, Delia Eddy.
The phenomena of the evening concluded with the re-uniting of a family'.

A German music teacher, named Max Lenzberg, was at Chittenden with his
wife and daughter. At the request of William Eddy at the beginning of
the evening, he played on the flute during the séance, and so occupied
a chair in advance of the front row. After Mr. Brown's disappearance,
the curtain was again drawn aside, and standing at the threshold were
two children. One was a baby of about one year, and the other a child
of twelve or thirteen. Behind, them, very indistinctly, could be
observed the form of an old woman, who held up the curtain with her
left hand and supported the baby with her right. Mrs. Lenzberg, with a
mother's instinct, recognized her departed little ones, and with tender
pathos, it was said, eagerly asked in German if they were not hers.
Immediately there came several loud responsive raps, and the little
Lena (the daughter in the audience), as if drawn from her mother's side
by an irresistible power, crept forward and peered at the forms that
stood at the edge of the black shadows of the cabinet. There was a
moment's silence as she strained her eyes in the gaze, and then she
said joyfully: 'Ja! Ihr seid meine kleine schwestern! Nicht wahr?'.
There came again responsive raps, and the spirit-forms danced and waved
their arms as if in glee at the re-union.

Sceptics of the Eddys said that the baby forms seen at their séances
were William with either pillows or white wrappings around his legs.
Olcott said that on several occasions he had seen babies in someone's
arms come from the cabinet nestled in the necks of their bearers, and
heard those forms while standing - like the Lenzberg children - speak.
A very sweet little girl who often appeared, blew a kiss to Olcott
every time; she appeared in a short white frock, low necked and short
sleeved, with a sash around her waist and ribbons at the shoulders.

Olcott said: 'The night of my arrival, the voice of the spirit, Mrs.
Eaton, called me to bring a light and see the condition of the medium,
the instant the last shape retired behind the curtain. I found
everything as usual in the cabinet - no costumes scattered around, no
signs of dressing having been going on. The window was closed against
the admission of light, by a small black shawl and a piece of
horse-blanket held against the panes by a bar of wood, cut to fit
inside the frame. The last forms that had shown themselves were those
of the two Lenzberg children, clad in white, but, although not more
than thirty seconds had elapsed, no white drapery was to be seen. The
medium was in a deep sleep, his features relaxed, his breathing almost
imperceptible, his skin free from moisture, and every indication
presented, of profound obliviousness to external things. The glare of
the lamp and the noise of my footsteps, did not awaken him, but, when I
shook him and called him by name, he opened his eyes and regarded me
with the startled look of one suddenly aroused from slumber and seeing
something unexpected at his bedside'.

From Proof Palpable of Immortality, by Epes Sargent we have the following interesting information: 'Mr. Max Lenzberg, in a letter to the Daily Times, of Hartford, Conn.,
gives an account of his and his familys experiences at Chittenden. He
describes the battery test applied to Honto, the Indian spirit-maiden,
by Dr Beard, a skeptic. The full power of the battery was let on, and
Honto received it without flinching. No mortal could have stood it.Mr. Lenzberg states that the spirit-form of his wife's brother, Abraham, who died seventeen years ago in Texas,
appeared on the stage at Chittenden in his shirt sleeves; and he adds:
'My wife recognized him at once, and said to him, 'Let me introduce you
to my husband'. I spoke to him in German (and he answered in German)
trans. 'Yes, it is I; I am much delighted'. It was a very distinct
apparition; there could be no mistake as to the reality of the figure,
and my wife said there was none as to identity'. The older woman spirit
who led the Lenzberg children from the cabinet was, it turns out, Mrs.
Lenzberg's mother'.

Quotable Quote

'It has been observed by frequenters of the Eddy circles that the
appearance and behavior of Honto are good indications of the general
character of the manifestations for the evening; if she is active, the
séance will be a good one; if not, the reverse'. (Mr. Henry Lacroix,
Chittenden, 1875).

Light-Circle Phenomena With Horatio Eddy

Henry Olcott's record of this is: 'The illustration represents what
happened on the first evening of my visit, after William's
materialization séance closed. It shows some of the visible
manifestations at Horatio G. Eddy's light circles. Thousands who have
attended the public exhibitions of the Davenports
and other traveling mediums, will recognize them as familiar. I was
chosen as one of the committee, on the evening when the Davenports
first appeared in the Cooper Institute, several years ago, and saw five
hands simultaneously thrust out of the aperture in the cabinet- door
and, grasping one, had my hand squeezed so that I felt the bruise for
hours (pardon the digression, I could not help but add that statement -
NRH). Instead of using a wooden box, Horatio Eddy hangs two shawls upon
the line that stretches from the chimney in the circle-room to the
south wall, leaving an open space between it and the ceiling of about
two feet.

The one next to the chimney, and behind Horatio's chair, is a short
one, and does not reach the floor by nearly three feet; and therefore,
if it were possible for him to execute tricks behind the other curtain,
without betraying himself by movements of his head, feet shoulders and
body, or the disturbance of the shawl, he would be favourably placed to
do so. I have watched him closely, and have never detected any such
indication of fraud. Besides, it will appear in the course of my
narrative that, even if he had both hands free to do what he chose, he
could not have done any one of several things that I will recount.

The shawls merely form a screen, behind which it must be almost as
light as in front, by reason of the open space between the cord and the
ceiling. A table is pushed into the corner, and on it
is laid the following: one guitar, one concertina, seven bells of
various sizes, two tambourines, eight harmonicons, one flute, one
piccolo, one flageolet, one tin ditto, and one triangle. Horatio sits
on a chair in front of the curtain, to the left, next to him some
gentleman selected from the audience, and at the right of the latter a
lady similarly chosen. I give these positions as they are upon the
platform . . .William Eddy then pins across the breasts of the two
males a third shawl, attaching the ends to the curtain. A bright light
is thrown upon the group from a kerosene lamp placed near and turned up
high. Presently there is a commotion among the articles on the table,
and loud knocks resound. The bells ring, various instruments are
displayed above the curtain; the guitar is played upon near the
ceiling, beneath the sitters' chairs, between the chimney side and
Horatio's chair to the left, flat against the south wall, beyond the
lady sitter to the right, and elsewhere; a familiar air is played in
concert by a number of the instruments; bells are wrung singly and in
harmony together, and hands of various sizes and tints dart into sight
through the aperture in the curtain, or show themselves above the cord.

On the occasion referred to, the gentleman sitting next to Horatio was
requested after a while, to give place to a lady, who, when she had
taken her seat and the shawl was re-adjusted, was caressed by a child's
hand, a tiny little thing, that might have belonged to a girl of two or
three years. It patted her cheek, was held at the lips to be kissed,
laid upon her head, smoothed her hair, and when her eyes filled with
tears, wiped them away and renewed its caresses . . . I had an
unobstructed view of all that transpired; but when this little hand was
thrust from another world to cheer and encourage the mother, whose
bosom it had so often clasped in life, I had drawn close up front, and
saw the very dimples on it. I am, therefore, entirely able and ready to
affirm that, even if the medium were an imposter, and had wished to
deceive the sitters with a clever juggle, he did not then nor could
not, for he could not transform his long, brown, bony, sinewy hand, and
his wrist, mutilated by the cruel tying of many 'committees', into the
size, colour and shape of the baby-hand that was materialized before my
eyes.

A call was soon made for writing materials, and a succession of
spirit-hands clutching the pen that William offered (see illustration)
them, and using my note-book as a tablet, wrote names on cards and
threw them towards the audience. Some were names of the dead, some of
the living; none, I am satisfied, familiar to the medium. The
performance of the evening concluded, at the request of a visitor, with
a series of imitations of the boring, sawing, and splitting of wood,
the filing of iron, and the pumping of water, the sounds occurring
behind the curtain, and all being so true to nature as to evoke great
applause.

During the entire sitting, as during each of the like character,
Horatio's two hands are supposed to have clasped the bared left arm of
the person next to him; his eyes were closed, and, as I said before,
there was neither rustle of the curtain, nor movements of his feet,
body, or shoulders. For all the attention he apparently gave to what
was going on he might have been in a stupor, or enjoying a nap after a
full meal.Now, these experience offers, perhaps, as
favourable an opportunity as any for the application of the theory,
that no reliance should be placed upon the evidence of the senses. I
either saw the baby-hand, and other larger ones, not the medium's,
heard the coincidental playing upon several instruments, and saw the
guitar played upon, not only beyond the reach of Horatio's arm, but
also flat against the south wall, in a position where he could not
possibly hold, much less play upon it; or I did not'.

On the
second night of Colonel Olcott's visit he said that Honto was the first
spirit to appear, and that she remained in sight nearly fifteen
minutes. Mr. Pritchard and Mrs. Cleveland occupied their usual chairs
on the platform, and Honto danced with the latter in an extremely
lively manner; balancing, advancing, crossing-over, and turning the old
lady as though 'the whole delight of her soul were in the figures of
dance'. She then allowed her height to be measured against the backs of
Mrs. Cleveland and a gentleman from the audience, Mr. Ralph. At a later
séance, she allowed Mrs. Cleveland to cut a lock of her hair; had Mr.
Olcott fill his pipe, hand it to Horatio and he in turn handed it to
her and she smoked away while prancing back and forth on the platform.

On the following evening, seven Indians and five whites appeared and
the majority of them were so obliging as to back up to the wall and
allow themselves to be measured. Clearly, it could be seen and once
again demonstrated that it would be altogether preposterous to imagine
that William Eddy was somehow impersonating all of these figures. Giant
Indians such as Santum and Swift Cloud, and little children appeared
and Olcott even timed the intervals between each one's appearance from
the cabinet. On average, a little more than a minute transpired between
the departure of one spirit and the arrival of another, all differing
in size, shape and dress.

Before moving on to Horatio Eddy's
dark circle phenomena, I am adding details from an interesting letter,
dated 21, October 1874:

'We hereby certify that at a circle, held on the 28th of April last, in
the new hall at the Eddy homestead, among other things that occurred,
was the following, which we regarded as very conclusive as to the
genuineness of the spirit materializations: 'Santum' was out on the
platform, and another Indian of almost as great stature came out, and
the two passed and re-passed each other as they walked up and down. The
stranger chief retired first, and Santum followed him. At the same
time, a conversation was being carried on between George Dix,
Mayflower, old Mr. Morse, and Mrs. Eaton, inside the cabinet. We
recognized the familiar voice of each.We had all
examined the cabinet that evening, and helped clear it of some loose
plaster which had fallen. There was no window in it then'. (Signed: R.
Hogdson, M.D., George Ralph, Sarah A. Ehle, Cora C. Ehle, Herman Ehle).

Referring to one of the materialization séances, Mr. Olcott stated:

'On the next evening I saw more spirits than on any other single
occasion but one, during my whole visit. Seventeen showed themselves,
and all were whites. There were of babies, 2; small children, 3; women,
young and old, 5; and adult males, 7. The theory that deceptive
imitations of little children were made by wrapping white rags around
one or both the medium's legs, as occasion required, was destroyed by
the circumstance that the smallest child, not a babe, I saw that
evening, bowed and curtsied to its mother, in reply to her question as
to its identity.Mr. Pritchard, who sat
next to me on my right in the front row, was called to the platform by
Mrs. Eaton's voice, and when he reached there, his two nephews William
and Chester Packard, late of Albany, N.Y., came out in turn to greet
him; the former shaking hands with him, andlayinghisleft hand upon his uncles shoulder'.

Dark Circle Phenomena with Horatio Eddy.

Usually, every other evening after William Eddy's materialization
phenomena, Horatio would hold one of his dark-circles. The preparation
for this event would consist of hanging shawls or blankets over the
four windows nearest the platform, to exclude even starlight, removing
the table from the platform - with its array of musical instruments -
to a position on the main floor just in front of the railing, and then
tying Horatio in a chair, placed to the right of the table and in front
of the spectators. Upon the extinction of the light, immediately the
gruff voice of the sailor-spirit George Dix, and the piping whisper of
the little girl spirit Mayflower - the two main controls of the dark
circle - would greet the audience, special mention often being made by
favourite acquaintances of these curiously matched copartners for these
striking séances.Dix asserts, that he was drowned at
the wreck of the Steamship President, and Mayflower's story was that
she died of fever, a century ago, while captive among the Indians of
the Maine
wilderness. Olcott said that he could not understand the underlying
spiritual law associated with her but, when she re-visited this world,
she did so as a child of twelve years, and manifested juvenile traits
in all that she did. Mayflower had a talent for improvision and would
rattle off a verse upon any subject named impromptu by anyone in the
audience; she was also an accomplished performer on various
instruments, which she would play with rare power and expression. She
was simple, innocent, and kindly to all; her heart was warm and
sympathetic. George Dix, on the other hand, was a manly, powerful
spirit, with a grip like a vice, a rollicking prankish nature, and a
hoarse voice, like that of one accustomed to shout in storms from
maintop to deck. He was an ingenious fellow, who sang, played well on
violin, whistled like a Bohemian flute, and was always ready to keep
the séance moving.

'There is a dance of a pack of a dozen howling, leaping, skylarking
Indians, who beat on the drums, rattle the tambourines, blow the horns,
ring the heavier bells, and make a din so hideous that one easily
fancies himself caught in the dance of live redskins about starting on
the warpath. If Horatio were unbound and using all four of his
locomotive and prehensile members, he could not imitate this dance. The
creatures yell, and one can hear their stamping on the floor in cadence
with their rude music. The dance is preceded by a stillness so dead
that, for any sound of life, we might fancy the room empty. A slow
beating of the time, a few clangs of the big dinner- bell, a measured
beat of the tambourine, and then the time grows faster and faster,
until, in a moment, we are in the midst of the hurly-burly. It needed
no stretch of the imagination to see, even in the Egyptian darkness of
the hall, the wild figures circling round and round, for their
demonstrations were of so obstreperous a character as to frighten all
but habitués of the coolest temperaments. As an exhibition of pure
brute force, if such a term may be applied to the occult power that
produces it, this Indian dance probably is unsurpassed in the annals of
spiritual manifestations. Following this episode, upon the evening
in question, came a sword- combat, apparently between two persons, for
the hacking of the two blades was, it seemed to me, too violent to be
done by one man operating in the dark, at the risk of chopping off a
finger, or mutilating a wrist. The play in weapons ended in a sudden
groan, and the falling of a man's body on the floor at my feet . . .
with a match being struck and candle lighted, the medium was found
sitting quietly in his chair, with his bounds undisturbed, and no sign
of perspiration on his skin. The floor, however, was littered with
musical instruments and bells, and the swords of the unseen combatants
were lying along with them.

Accordingly a gentleman present, Mr. George W. Nichols, of New York City,
sat in Horatio Eddy's lap, while I, drawing up my chair in front of
him, placed my feet upon Horatio's toes and held Mr. Nichols's hands,
thus making it impossible that either of the three should move without
each of the others knowing it.Moreover, Horatio could
not move if he wished, for his hands were tightly bound to the back of
his chair, and even if he could disengage them, he could not move them
forward to touch us, or the instruments scattered about; his slightest
motion would be instantly detected by the man sitting on his lap. The
light was again extinguished and a new performance began. Hands, cold,
clammy and firm, stroked our faces, patted our heads and hands, slapped
me on the back and legs, and Mr. Nichols on the parts of his person not
leaning against the medium, a pair of lips kissed my cheek, and two
huge hands tickled me under my arms at one time. Then the accordion,
concertina, and tambourine were played all about us, bells were rung,
blows given on the floor with the swords, and the guitar, floating
through the air or resting upon my head, played one or more familiar
airs. Meanwhile every person in the front row of the audience sat with
hands joined, which is the same as saying, that no one, even if so
disposed, could get to us to do what was done . . . light was called
for, and we then took our seats again in the circle.

The next thing in order was the improvisation of rhymes by Mayflower.
The dear child, who came and laid her little hand on mine for an
instant, allowed me to name the subject, and then reeled off a score of
limping hexameters . . . when she breathed the words through the stops
of the harmonicon, with exquisite modulation of the sounds, her 'golden
stars' and 'silver shores' and 'Heavenly fields' seemed almost to come
before us as pictures of a fairy land'.

Then George Dix's voice announced that the band composed of spirits
known as Electa, Honto, Santum, Rosa, the little girl, French Mary,
Mayflower, and himself, would render the piece called 'The Storm at
Sea'. The musician, Max Lenzberg, was present, and in his letter to
Olcott for 'People From The Other World', he stated (condensed):'The
concerted pieces were an imitation of a storm at sea, by the violin,
with the accompaniment of the mouth harmonicon, tambourine, concertina,
triangle, guitar, and several bells. In the storm, the whistling of the
wind was made apparently by bowing on the guitar with one hand, and at
the same time sliding the other up and down the fingerboard, producing
harmonic notes. The heavy blowing of the gale was imitated by a tremolo
on the violin, accompanied by a confusion of sounds from the other
instruments. The shock of waves against the ship was forcibly suggested
by lifting a heavy table and beating on the floor with its legs. There
was one sound that could not possibly be imitated by any instrument,
viz.: the pumping of water, with the suck of the piston, the gurgle of
water in the tube, and its splash, as if running off the deck.

Throughout the whole entertainment, the medium sat in a chair in front
of the spectators, with his wrists tied together and to the back of the
chair. A light was struck instantly after some of the most remarkable
performances, and he was found in the same position and tied in the
same manner as at the first'.

Miscellaneous Wonders

In the light circle with Horatio, a standard feature was the writing of
notes by the spirits and then having them handed out to members of the
audience. One night, a number of blank cards were called for and handed
to one of the spirit's arms that thrust itself through the curtain. The
pen and inkstand were then passed through in like manner, and
immediately a number of cards were showered upon Henry Olcott, who was
sitting in front of the curtain. The ink was so fresh, he stated, that
he had to lay the cards on the railing to dry.Olcott
said that he was greatly pleased at the favor shown him by the spirits
and that the facsimiles he was going to print would, no doubt, be very
interesting to the public. When he said this there was ringing of
bells, strumming on the instruments, and pounding on the table, that
gave a sufficiently marked response that they were quite pleased.

In one of the most unprecedented experiments ever attempted for that time, Olcott had procured in nearby Rutland
one of Howe's Standard platform scales - the signed certificate of its
quality and accuracy included in his book - and had it placed upon the
platform to the right of the cabinet.When Honto came
out she saluted everyone in her usual way then turned and scrutinized
the strange machine with Indian-like hesitancy. After being told what
was desired, she boldly stepped on to the scale, and bent forward to
look at the movements of Mr. Pritchard as his hand moved the poise
along the beam. When the balance was attained, Honto stepped off the
pad and passed into the cabinet. Upon a match being struck, it was
verified that the spirit weighed 88 pounds. Honto then reappeared and
was asked by Olcott to make herself lighter. She again mounted the
scale and this time was 58 pounds; the next sequence she weighed the
same, 58, and for the last attempt, the beam showed 65 pounds. She
changed her weight three distinct times and, I must say, the picture of
Honto on the scale is one of the sweetest things I have ever seen.

Eddy Brothers - Physical Mediums Part 3

The Return Of Julia Eddy

On the day that Mr. Olcott and his artist friend were making the sketch
of Julia Eddy's grave, he suggested that it would be a genuine test of
the power of the spirits if Mrs. Eddy herself could come from the
cabinet that evening; they would keep the matter to themselves and see
what might come of it. There were fourteen people in the audience and
nine spirits showed themselves. First came William Brown, who, it turns
out, was the chief control of the materialization demonstrations during
the summer months, then came Maria Ann Clarke; then a Mrs. Griswold,
who was murdered in Vermont not long ago, and who, upon a former visit to the circle-room, gave all the details of the crime.

The fourth spirit was Julia Eddy herself, who stood motionless at first
looking at Olcott and his artist friend. She bowed and then retired
into the cabinet, then immediately returned to address the audience . .
. 'Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory?' were her
first words. Her voice, according to the report, was so clear and loud
that it could have filled a New York city
auditorium they said. She wore a white waist and dark shirt. Her hair
was in ringlets. She said to Olcott, 'Your writings are true, and be
assured the Truth will prevail. A thousand spirits are watching your
every step, and wishing you Godspeed. They see the rapid spread of
Truth upon earth; and they and a countless host besides are helping it
on. Go on, my friend; we will welcome you in gratitude and joy when you
come to the other world, for daring to tell the truth, and helping to
disseminate it. I thank you for your kindness to my children, who have
suffered so much and so long for the good cause'. Olcott said: 'I
needed no stenographer to fix upon my memory this astounding address,
of which I gave only a fragment. She spoke of her own sufferings and
trials upon the earth, and denounced the bitter and unstinted anger of
all who slander and persecute mediums, especially her own children'.

Spirit Power - The Spring Balance Demonstration

Two Howe's Standard spring balances were purchased from L.G. Kingsley of Rutland
so that Olcott could test the power of the detached hands coming
through the curtain during Horatio's light-circle. The experiment was
two-fold, viz.: to ascertain how much the hands could pull
horizontally, and how much vertically. One of the balances was fastened
with a stout cord to the handrail, allowing a sufficiency of cord to
bring the hook of the balance within easy reach of the spirit- hand,
for the horizontal pull. The other was attached to a strong ring, made
for the purpose, and screwed into the floor, between the left foot of
the gentleman sitter and the right foot of the medium. There were
twenty-six persons present, the date was September 30th, 1874. After
some instrument playing and card writing, the guitar, tambourine, and
several bells were thrown over the curtain, after which a hand was
thrust out, and by the opening and closing of the fingers, indicated
that they were ready for the experiment. Olcott stepped on to the
platform and handed the hook to the hand, which grasped it, moved its
fingers on and off the hook to get a firm hold - as anyone would do -
and then, easily, steadily, and without spasmodic action, compressed
the spring until the pointer ran down to the 40 pound mark. The spring
was held there in place until Olcott reached out his hand to take back
the balance, and then simply recoiled as gradually as it had been
compressed. The spirit hand was the left one, large, broad and white.
Olcott stood within a foot of it when it pulled and noticed that upon
the wrist there were two thin parallel lines of tattooing in blue India
ink. In one of the finest statements that I have ever heard concerning
spirit phenomena, Horatio said that while the pulling was being done by
the one hand of the spirit, he braced his other hand against the back
of Horatio for leverage, causing Horatio to lean forward; obviously if
the medium was the one pulling, he would have leaned the opposite way.

The vertical pull was done by the right hand of George Dix, the
powerful sailor spirit. The date was October 2nd. Adding superior
evidential value to the Eddy phenomena was the fact that Dix had a
little finger missing from his right hand. The hand, according to
Olcott, was white as marble, and he could actually see the tendons
contracting during the strain of the pull, and the blue veins of the
wrist. The pull was steady, as the other, but much more powerful, for
the entire 50 pounds was indicated by the pointer. After this
incredible feat of strength, Dix slapped Olcott heartily on the back
and tickled him in the ribs. Olcott stated that Dix could most likely
have easily pulled 100 pounds more, and assent was given by Dix issuing
a thunderous pound on to the table almost shattering it into a thousand
pieces.

Quotable Quote: Henry Lacroix, Chittenden, 1875

'We can very well understand that a skeptic, coming and remaining here
but a night or two, and seeing the manifestations of materialization
under their ordinary aspect, returns home dissatisfied, and, more than
that, with a strong suspicion that he has been fooled. Hence the
rumors, widespread, take consistency here and there, that the specters
of Spirit Vale, as Chittenden is called, are unreal, intangible, and
but objects of trickery. We would certainly advise all skeptics, and
even investigators who have made some headway, to go elsewhere - to see
about home what is produced by inferior mediums, and furthermore, to
prepare and educate their powers of understanding. It is unsafe for
those who have been in darkness to satisfy their desire for light by
rushing out at once into the full blaze. The subjective and objective
realities of Spiritualism are no mere child-playthings; they cannot be
comprehended with initiation; and the thick-headed, which form the
majority, need not expect to get ahead of others who step by step have
advanced, and now possess conviction and comprehension.

Some over zealous people, in wishing to instruct the visitor about the
-queer- ways of the great mediums, will tell you to be cautious how you
express yourself before them, or to those around; how to deport
yourself in every way - as the very sensitive, 'bear-like, uncouth,
uncivilized' brothers may dismiss you on the slightest grounds, and
when least expected. It is due to truth, and to the medium brothers
that we should lay bare the case, and in a few words. We have found, by
personal experience, unsought, unlooked for, that the brothers, far
from wishing harm to those parties who try to injure them, or being
inclined to resent on the innocent the injuries received, take such
little notice of these fly-bites, numerous as they are, as to render
unto their enemies good for evil. The two brothers who minister unto
the spiritual wants of so many are simple in their ways, language, and
dealings; manhood, beside, being stamped upon their brows in
unmistakable characters. Accustomed as the principal medium for
materialization (William) is to the inner life, his manners reveal less
of the outward than is found in Horatio, who enacts what are called the
light and dark circles. Both, however, endeavor in every way to make
themselves agreeable to their guests, and are always ready to answer
questions in a genial mood. The active care of the farm devolves upon
William, who is seen all day long, and every day, attending to such
work. The outside business, and attendance of the guests, is performed
by Horatio. The lady guests are often seen in the kitchen helping the
cook, and sometimes William, who occasionally in the morning performs
that drudgery, as well as washing of linen, under the influence of the
spirit of an Irish washerwoman, named Ann Cuddy'.

Excerpt from A Southerner Among the Spirits:

The Banner of Light, October, 1875.Henry Lacroix.

'A goodly number of Indian spirits make their appearance here, but we
heard none of them speak except one . . . that class of control comes
oftener, we are told, when the medium is unwell, or in bad condition,
so as to give him strength. On Tuesday, August 3rd, six of these Indian
spirits appeared, attired in gorgeous manner; some of their
head-dresses were ornamented with beautiful flowing plumes, which they
bent forward in the full light outside the door of the cabinet. As one
of them, called Massasoit, protruded his head outward, three beautiful
pond lilies (of which none are to be found in the neighbourhood) were
seen among the other ornaments upon his head. Another, who came to the
medium Mrs. Cutter, had a gorgeous costume and a brilliant head-dress
from which a seemingly living serpent, of the milk-adder species,
coiled around it, dangling its head'.

M. D. Shindler: 'During one of William's séances, a young woman emerged
from the cabinet, holding a young baby in her arms. Mr. Brown, the
husband of the medium, Delia Eddy, at once recognised his sister, and
asked her if that was Delia's baby. The spirit form bowed her head in
affirmation. 'May Delia go to the platform?' he inquired. Again there
was an affirmative bow. Delia accordingly went upon the platform, took
the apparently living, moving baby in her arms, kissed it
affectionately, and returned it to its spirit nurse. With bowed head
and streaming tears she returned to her seat beside her husband, amid a
silence broken only by the suppressed sobs of other mothers who had
witnessed the affecting scene. No mother who was present on that
occasion will ever be persuaded that this was not a real spirit scene'.

Henry Olcott: 'One night Mayflower told me, as evidence of the superior
knowledge of spirits, that she herself could harden and weld copper,
and make a small machine that would lift the house we were in, as
easily as I could my hat. When I asked her why she would not impart
some of her knowledge for the benefit of the world, her reply was that,
when our men of science got so far progressed as to lose their empty
conceit, and discover that they hardly knew the alphabet of science,
and were prepared to learn, these and many more important discoveries
would reward them'.

The Ring Test.

Colonel Olcott: 'When the ring test was about to begin, I was requested
by the medium (Horatio) to take both his hands in mine and keep a firm
hold . . . our hands crossed, my right holding his right, and his left
my left. The iron ring used for the experiment was then exhibited
through the shawl by another hand, so that all could see it, and then
dropped upon the floor at my feet, striking it with a metallic sound,
and rolling off the platform. After all who chose had had the
opportunity to examine it, it was passed back, and taken behind the
curtain by the spirit hand. I then felt an arm and shoulder pressing
against my back, as I sat touching the edge of the table behind me, and
the ring, and a cold hand that held it touched the bare, warm skin of
my left forearm. A tremendous shock ran through the medium's body, and
instantly the iron ring slid down from his arm over my right wrist and
hung there'.

The Table And The Glass

After a spirit concert one night, George Dix, the sailor spirit
requested Joe Rugg, one of the Eddy family's faithful farm hands, to
bring a small stand and a glass of water. These directions were
complied with, and the water being placed upon the stand, the light was
extinguished again, and, for a moment, the audience was in total
darkness. The candle was re-lighted, and the glass of water was
inverted upon the stand, the water still within the glass, and nothing
over the mouth to keep it in. The light was put out again, and when
again called for, the stand was upside down on the floor, and the
tumbler, with its contents, right side up, balanced upon the point of
one of the legs. The light was extinguished again and re-lighted, and
then the tumbler was on the floor, at the feet of Olcott, the water
gone, and a wreath, weaved together with ribbon and sea-shells by
beautiful Mayflower (see next section), inside, as dry as a bone.

Mayflower And Her Beautiful Gift

Colonel Olcott, when in Rutland,
procured some ribbon of three colours and sent them to Chittenden in
the care of Mr. Luther B. Hunt, a friend of Horatio who was visiting
the homestead. The parcel sent by Olcott, with a note, Mr. Hunt said he
put in the pocket of his coat, which hung in his bedroom, intending to
take the ribbons with him to the next dark circle, and hold the little
maid - Mayflower had promised Olcott one of her beautifully braided
ribbons - to the fulfillment of her promise to him. On the same day,
William being, as he many times was, under influence, said to Mr. Hunt,
'if you will go upstairs and look in your pocket you will find
something'. Mr. Hunt went and searched his coat, but found nothing, and
returning, reported his ill-luck. But William said that he had not
looked in the right place, it was in the vest-pocket where the articles
were. And in the vest-pocket, sure enough, he found two wreaths, one
for Olcott and the other for another gentleman.

The next evening at the dark circle Mayflower, addressing Mr. Hunt,
said that he had overlooked the note that she had left for Olcott with
the wreaths. Another search of the vest disclosed a tiny note, written
on a small square of thin paper, and being to the effect that Mr.
Olcott was her dear friend, and she thanked him for his kind
expressions, and hoped that he would keep the wreath to remember her by
(all of us should be so lucky). The wreath illustrated on the left was
how it looked originally. Olcott, carrying out a little test of
Mayflower's powers, in total darkness, laid the wreath on the lap of
the woman sitting beside him. Of course immediately Mayflower noticed
it and said: 'Oh, Mrs. Murphy, what have you got in your lap? It's my
wreath! Mr. Olcott, you want me to braid it over again for you?'. He
said he did, in another pattern and with the ribbons passed through
some perforated sea-shells (she had done this before for a woman).

Mayflower stated that she did not have any sea-shells with her at the
moment, but she would get some and re-braid the ribbon again, and
return it next time they met. Olcott secretly then dropped the little
wreath on to the floor - it was total darkness still - and when the
light was struck, the wreath was gone. Ten days later, after the Indian
dance, and the 'Storm at Sea' demonstration, the beautiful little
wreath braided through with sea-shells appeared in the final stage of
the table and glass demonstration - previously mentioned - under the
inverted glass, as dry as a bone. I would give anything to know where
it is right now.

Evidence Of The Highest Level

In order to conclusively prove that the upstairs hall, the hollow
platform, the cabinet floor, nor the mysterious window in the cabinet -
which had so troubled the souls of the many superficial skeptics, or
anything about the circle room for that matter, had anything to do with
the manifestations, just before the usual time for the circle, it was
suggested on the spur of the moment by Olcott (finding, as he said, the
Eddy boys in an unusually tractable mood), that the sitting should be
held downstairs in the reception room where they were presently
gathered about the fireplace. Without hesitancy, this was assented to
by William, and the old shawl that hung over the cabinet door upstairs
was brought down. The old rough mattress and some working clothes were
removed from the dark closet room beneath the stairs, and they were
ready to begin the séance.

The shawl curtain was arranged and all took their seats; the lamp was
placed on the far chimney-directly across from room B. Within a few
minutes, the shawl was lifted and out jumped Honto, as lively as a
squirrel. She was dressed in a light outfit throughout, with a scarf
around her waist, and her beautiful hair hung loose down her back. She
stepped to the dining room door (H), lifted the latch and threw it
open; then began prancing and capering about in her usual ways, as if
she were in the finest of spirits. Shawl after shawl she twitched from
old Mrs. Cleveland's and Mr. Pritchard's feet and shoulders,
astonishing them each and every time. Then she stepped to the right of
the cabinet door, and stood directly opposite Olcott and stared at him,
then looked intently at the floor by the mop-board. There was nothing
to be seen at first but bare planks, but presto! As Olcott watched,
there suddenly appeared a heap of something black; material of some
kind, which she stretched out her hand and daintily picked up with her
thumb and forefinger, held it open, and there it was - one of her
shawls. Next came out old Mrs. Pritchard from the cabinet, who was
dressed, as usual in her grayish frock, and white apron and kerchief.
She spoke to and stood by her son before retiring.

Next, in one of the most beautiful and unforgettable scenes ever
beheld, a young woman stepped out from the closet carrying a little
child in her arms and stood to the side of the opening for everyone to
see. She was immediately recognised by her sister who was sitting in
the audience, as Josephine Dow, late of Chittenden township. She had
passed away twenty-four years ago at the tender age of nineteen. Her
robe was pure white and flowing, gathered in at the waist by a string,
so that the folds of the upper part lay over it after a very classical
fashion. Her auburn hair fell in a mass over her shoulders, and as she
stood there petting the child, Olcott said that he had never seen a
prettier sight.

She then stepped back into the cabinet, and the voice of Mrs. Eaton
then told Olcott that she would be coming back out because the spirits
wanted her for the subject in the artists illustration. She stepped
back out without the child and looked the artist right in the face as
she stood next to the cabinet door with her right arm crossed over her
waist and her left hanging by her side. The artist, obviously chose to
illustrate both the maiden and her little angel. After the 'Madonna and
Child', came William Packard, late of Albany
who, upon the artist's request, moved along the wall where his figure
was thrown into high relief. He wore a dark coat and single-breasted
vest, with white shirt collar. Next came out Mrs. Eaton herself, a
little old wrinkled woman, in old fashioned muslin mop-cap with a
ribbon about the crown, a grayish dress, and a check woolen
shoulder-shawl. She talked to Olcott about conditions in the séance
room - in general - and how they were subject to the conditions around
them, and where a circle was constantly changing, and never the same
two evenings in a row, they could not do all that he demanded or even
what they, the spirits, wished.Although not illustrated, there came an old, gentlemanly looking man dressed in a well-tailored black suit, a young woman named Augusta, 14 years old and in a pure white dress, and lastly, Jeremiah McCready, late of Cayuga County, N.Y., bringing to a close one of the most astounding demonstrations on record, and certainly one of the most evidential.

Spirits From Far Cathay

Madame Helene Petrovna Blavatsky, the future founder of Theosophy,
arrived at the Eddy farm on 14 October, 1874. The arrival of this
distinguished and eccentric Russian woman marked the beginning of an
interesting series of events in the history of the Chittenden
manifestations, for not only did it substantiate even further the
awesome physical mediumship of the Eddy brothers, but the séances held
in the circle-room allowed an extraordinary host of foreign
spirit-visitors to make their appearance in her honour.

Madame Blavatsky stayed at the Eddys for two weeks, and Henry Olcott's
long mission which had lasted for more than two and a half months as
special correspondent for the Daily Graphic, ended shortly after.
Although they had only met for the first time while in Chittenden,
Olcott and Madame B. were destined to be together - for the most part -
for the rest of their lives. They both met up again in New York City
where Olcott wrote People From the Other World, and where Madame B.
started writing what would eventually be considered the textbook of
Theosophy, Isis Unveiled.

The Eddy family, and their spirit friends, had always kept Colonel
Olcott at a distance for the entire duration of his visit and, believe
it or not, few special favours were ever granted to him, and they never
completely trusted him. In their mysterious way, the spirits must have
seen the future, because from the moment Madame Blavatsky arrived, he
was then kept almost completely at a distance and was never treated the
same again.

Madame B., in her letter to Epes Sargent, stated that while at the
Eddys, she saw no less than one hundred and nineteen spirits
materialise, seven or eight of which she personally recognised; Olcott,
during the course of his investigation, saw more than four hundred
spirits in the circle-room materialise.Spiritualism
teaches and seeks communication with spirits; Theosophy, which Madame
B. and Henry Olcott would spend almost every waking moment of their
future promoting as a world religion and philosophy, puts down all such
spirit communications as emanating from astral 'shells' or evil
spirits, and also taught 'conscious development and a mastery of man's
psychic faculties with an additional doctrine of a series of
'compulsory reincarnations''. How could this be after what Olcott and
Blavatsky had experienced at the Eddys? Nonetheless, the
manifestations were extraordinary and that is what I am concerned with;
I will leave it to others to try and explain the Theosophical
contradiction. I have combined Olcott's report with the report written
to Epes Sargent by Madame B.

Moments after William Eddy entered the cabinet, the curtain was drawn
aside and out sprang Honto as quick as a deer and with her left hand
placed on to the top of the railing, sprang right over it and landed
herself on to the floor of the circle-room, gave everyone a good look,
placed her left foot up on to the platform edge, her left hand once
again on to the railing and jumped clear over it again landing back on
the platform. Immediately after this she raced over to the side of the
cabinet door and, motioning for everyone to observe as she placed her
back up against the wall, showed her height, her feet, the bead running
around her dress, and then unplaited her hair and shook it out over her
shoulders, then stood with her back to the audience and let it hang
over the rail so everyone could see its length then, inviting Mrs.
Cleveland up to the stage, allowed her to cut a lock of her hair. The
giant Winnebago Indian, Santum, then came, stooping down as he always
did so his height could negotiate the cabinet door; then came the
braves, Wando and Wasso, and then the first of the Russian ladys
spirit visitors made his appearance. The illustrations show the spirits
who came to see her while she was visiting, and I will include an
explanation of who they were as I said, from the reports of Olcott and
Madame B.This spirit was a Georgian boy, dressed in
historical Caucasian attire, jacket with loose sleeves and long pointed
over sleeves, an outer coat, baggy trousers, leggings of yellow
leather, and a white skullcap, or fez, with tassel. He was recognised
immediately by Madame B. as Michalko Guegidze, late of Kutais, Georgia,
a servant of Madame Witte, a relative of Madame B. who questioned him
in Georgian about circumstances known only by herself, and he
unhesitatingly answered her. His hand is the one protruding through the
curtain in the illustration at the beginning of Part IV. During the
light circle, Madame B. requested Michalko -in his native tongue -to
play the Lezguinka, a Circassian dance, and he did so immediately on
the guitar. He appeared numerous times.

The spirit M. Zephirin Boudreau, late of Canada,
appeared, the father of the lady who had accompanied Madame Blavatsky
to the Eddy farm and who, it was noted, was also attending her first
séance. She addressed her questions to him in French, and he responded
by rapping with his hand against the doorframe of the cabinet, except
in one instance when he uttered the word 'Qui'. He had an aquiline
nose, hollow cheek-bones, and an iron grey beard upon his chin. In
stature he was tall, and in figure slim, with the air of a gentleman.

The curtain was lifted, and out stepped this gentleman who, according
to Olcott, 'was of so marked an appearance as to make it absolutely
absurd to imagine that William Eddy could even attempt to personate
such a character'. This very attitude, by the way, after he had, up to
this point, witnessed at least three hundred materialised spirits was,
I believe, the reason why they distrusted him. The spirit was portly
personage, with an unmistakable air of high breeding, in an evening
suit of black cloth, with a frilled white shirt and frilled wristbands.
About his neck he wore the Greek cross of St. Anne, attached to its
appropriate ribbon. At first, Madame B. thought her father was standing
before them and almost fainted, but the spirit advanced closer and
uttered in Russian the word 'Djadja' (uncle), and she recognised her
father's brother who bore a strong resemblance to her father. This was
M. Gustave H. Hahn, the late President of the Criminal Court at Grodno, Russia; he passed away in 1861.
This spirit was an old woman who came out from the cabinet dressed in
the costume of a Russian peasant woman. She immediately addressed
Madame B. in Russian calling her by an endearing term that she used in
her childhood. She was wearing Russian head-gear, and was an old nurse
of the family and took care of Madame B. and her sister in their early
childhood.

A Hindu coolie, or an Arab athlete, as he was described, stepped upon
the platform. He was dark-skinned, of short stature, a lean, wiry,
active form, with no fat on his frame whatsoever (a 'greyhound in
working condition', said Olcott). He had long, mere bones and sinew,
with a cat-like suppleness. For dress, a closely fitting vest,
seemingly cotton, drawers tucked into what might have been sock or
gaiters, a sash about his loins, and upon his head a dark red
handkerchief. He came to Madame B., and made her a profound obeisance,
but she failed to recognise him; he bowed and departed back into the
cabinet.

This astonishing figure stepped out of the cabinet on the second
evening. According to Madame Blavatsky: 'He was dressed as Persian
merchants generally are. His dress is as perfect as a national costume.
Everything is in its right place, down to the 'barouches' that are off
his feet . . . he speaks his name in a loud whisper. It is Hassan Agha,
an old man whom I and my family have known for twenty years at Tiflis.
He was a 'medium' who divined with conjuring stones. He had on a long
yellowish coat, Turkish trousers, a bishmet, or vest and a black
Astrakhan cap, pappaha, covered with the national bashlik, or hood,
with its long tasselled ends thrown over each shoulder'.This
figure next stepped out of the cabinet on the next evening and
astonished everyone. He was a tall, spare but powerful negro, 'black as
ink' according to Olcott, dressed in one of the most curious costumes.
Upon his head he had a coiffure . . . four horns with bent tips,
similar to those of the chamois, or African antelope . . . the points
of the two in front were turned backward, and those of the two in the
rear, forward, while a brass or gilt ball hung suspended from each tip.
Madame B. did not recognise him at first, but as he stepped forward she
then saw him as the chief of a party of African jugglers whom she had
encountered once in Upper Egypt, at a celebration of the feast of 'The Ramazan'.

I have saved until last this spirit visitor because it was one of the
most wondrous and extraordinary manifestations ever witnessed in the
history of séances. In the year 1851, Madame Blavatsky was passing the
summer at Daratschi-Tchag, an Armenian place of summer resort in the
plane of Mount Ararat. Her husband, being vice-Governor of Erivan,
had a body-guard of some fifty Kurd (Konde) warriors, among whom one of
the strongest and bravest, named Safar Ali Bek, Ibrahim Bek Ogli (the
son of Ibrahim) was detailed as the lady's personal escort. He rode
after her everywhere on her daily equestrian excursions, and delighted
to display his unusual skill as a cavalier. This very man walked out of
the cabinet of William Eddy, dressed to minutest detail of dress as
when she last saw him in Asia.
There was no mistaking the identity and he was recognised immediately.
He came out empty handed, but soon bent forward, as if picking up a
handful of mould from the ground, made a gesture of scattering it, and
then pressed his hand to his bosom - a gesture familiar only to the
tribes of Kurdistan; then he suddenly held in his right hand a giant
spear, more than a dozen feet in length with the butt of it still
extending into the cabinet. It had a long steel head of a peculiar
shape which was surrounded by ostrich plumes. Where, I wonder,
could the critics of William Eddy have gone with this one? A twelve
foot spear materialised from a cabinet which was seven feet by two
feet. Long live the glorious name of William Eddy.

The Eddys had purchased a parlor organ to enhance the séances and one
night, while Madame Blavatsky was playing it, the playful sprite
herself, Honto, stepped out from the cabinet, came right over to the
railing, stooped down and peeked right at her up close in her playful
and unendingly curious manner. One night, Mr. Ralph, Mr. Pritchard, and
Mrs. Cleveland, who had been invited to sit on the platform by the
spirits, were all suddenly requested to take their seats among the
audience, and the benches were ordered pushed back farther than usual.
Honto then reappeared (she had been out before doing some of her usual
tricks) examined in the minutest detail the parlor organ, and with one
foot on the pedal, played a few notes. She then retired to the cabinet,
reappeared, and, taking a chair that Mr. Ralph placed for her, sat down
and played a wild, disconnected melody as an accompaniment to her
voice; this was her first time attempting to sing. On this evening
alone, Honto - the mini-tornado of energy - danced up a storm, played
the organ four times, smoked a cigar, made numerous shawls and tissues
from the thin air, danced a jig with Horatio (who hated dancing), took
a bracelet from a lady visitor as a present, and sang a song. A leading
woman in a variety show could not have done more!

Apport Encounters Of The Extraordinary Kind

On the evening of October 24th, with a full moon shining about the
valley, and atmospheric conditions of considered damp, but favourable,
in the dark-circle, as soon as the light was extinguished, the spirit
control George Dix, addressing Madame Blavatsky, said: 'Madame, I am
now about to give you a test of the genuineness of the manifestations
in this circle, which I think will satisfy not only you, but a
sceptical world beside. I shall place in your hands the buckle of a
medal of honour worn in life by your brave father, and buried with his
body in Russia. This has been brought to you by your uncle, whom you have seen materialised this evening'.Presently
all heard an exclamation, and, a light being struck, they all saw
Madame B. holding in her hand a silver buckle of a most curious shape,
which she regarded in speechless wonder.

When she recovered herself a little, she announced that this buckle
had, indeed, been worn by her father, with many other decorations, that
she identified this particular article by the fact that the point of
the pin had been carelessly broken off by herself many years ago; and
that, according to universal custom, this, with all other medals and
crosses, must have been buried with her father's body. As to the
authenticity of this present, so wondrously received, she possessed
ample proof, in a photographic copy of her father's oil portrait, in
which this very buckle appears, attached to its own ribbon and medal.A
buckle transported from the very grave of Madame Blavatsky's father,
five thousand miles away, and laid directly in her hands in pitch
darkness while sitting in the circle-room of the Eddys Vermont farmhouse. Olcott stated . . . 'Was there ever a manifestation more wonderful than this?'

Long live the glorious name of Horatio Eddy.

Other items that were apported on to the circle-room floor of the
Eddys were the following: A large stone, weighing more than sixty
pounds, the signed document of which I am looking at attesting to its
reality, written by Mr. George Ralph, of Utica, N.Y.
With the doors and windows sealed-in the lower sitting room - the stone
was suddenly dropped at his feet. He had noticed the stone outside in a
field during the day; a cart wheel, two large mother-of-pearl shells,
and ear of Egyptian corn (said to have come from a mummy's tomb), a
specimen of rare mineral, and gold vest-chain, a heavy gold ring, two
small spotted shells, a miniature ivory die for a watch 'charm', a
small quartz crystal, and a cut white carnelian seal-stone, all said to
have been brought by spirit-visitors. On many occasions, the spirits
had brought money to give to people in need. One gentleman stated that
in one extraordinary instance, seven different communications were
written, on an equal number of pieces of paper of as many different
colours, and sewed, each with a silk of a colour to match the paper,
upon a child's pocket-handkerchief. Strangest of all, upon each paper
was stitched a lock of hair, said to have come from the very spirit who
had written each individual communication, taken from their graves.

The Sure Foundation

As we are now entering the last segment of this Eddy story, I think it
would be quite fitting to include some of the perspectives of Henry
Olcott, the pioneer of this historic investigation. Although it was, I
believe, very wearisome to the spirits that Mr Olcott remained what can
only be called 'on the fence' regarding any phenomena that had even the
slightest chance or possibility of being produced by fraud or trickery
- and at times, I found this 'scientific' attitude absolutely
preposterous considering the unfolding marvels - nonetheless, he sought
to also defend the genuineness of their mediumship wherever he could.
The following is an interesting quote by him:'It is
upon such tests as these, spontaneously given (a spirit wrote his name
in Russian during the light-circle, and it was recognised without
hesitation), that I have based my confidence in these Eddy boys.
Granted that they may be able to tie and untie themselves, float'
instruments, ring bells, and fool intelligent persons into the belief
that their hands are on their arms when, in fact, they are in quite a
different place; admitting all this, I exclude from my case every
individual phenomenon that can be explained upon the hypothesis of
trickery, and still, as I conceive, have an abundance remaining to
prove their mediumship. If the 'grand expositor' had shown the public a
theory broad enough to cover all the appearances in William's circle, -
the talking children, the wrinkled old men and women; the young girls
in the suppleness, freshness, and plumpness of youth, with their white,
bare arms, shapely hands, and well-set heads; the diversities in height
and bulk, so great as to be inexplicable to any frequenter of the
coulisses upon the theory of personation; the speaking of various
languages, some the most unusually known in this country; the changing
of complexions from white to copper, and black to white; the faces
without a sign of beard, while the medium wears a black moustache all
the while; these, and, further, the exceptional tests given in
Horatio's light-circle, and the music playing and other marvels of his
dark-circle, I would have only to confess that my two months' labour
had been wasted, and I was one more of the fools of the senses. This is
just what I have waited for, and what I have not discovered. Until I
do, I stand upon my story of phenomena observed, with the confidence of
one whose house is built upon a sure foundation'.

In another interesting perspective, Olcott was very much aware of the
suspicious and sometimes repellent nature of the spirits, and the
mediums, towards him. There is no doubt whatsoever that the spirits,
especially when Madame Blavatsky arrived, had the foresight to sense
danger. The spirits sensed Olcott's future 'turn-around' regarding the
nature of phenomena as explained through the teachings of Theosophy,
and so they, likewise, turned around. On a personal note, I think that
the thrill of adventure - which it certainly turned out to be - was a
very attractive element for Olcott in going with Madame Blavatsky; he
left his entire family for her. The most important thing is that he was
there at Chittenden and carried on one of the most thorough and concise
investigations ever put on record, narrated so frankly and clearly as
it was and this, has enabled me to be able to convey to you the readers
the essential elements of this incredible, historic and wondrous story
of the Eddy family. Henry Olcott at times, throughout his work, was
very moving and poetic in his words. I thought it would be nice to end
this article by including the words written by him in describing
William Eddy, for it seems to put the entire story in perspective.

Twenty Years Too Late: In the World, But Not Of It

'And now let the intelligent reader cast his eyes upon the life-like,
full-length sketch of William H. Eddy, as he appears every day, all
day, and, barring the hat, at the moment of his entrance into his
'cabinet', and say whether he fills my outline in any particular. He
has not one peculiarity of temperament, or physical organisation, in
common with a professional actor. He is clumsy instead of supple; never
acted on any stage or privately in his life; is five feet nine inches
high, and weighs 179 pounds; has not a shred of theatrical clothing in
the house, nor a wig, nor stage shoes, nor properties; the ghosts
appear after intermissions of from half a minute to four and five
minutes; Indians succeeding whites, or vice versa, men and women, or
the contrary, and children grown persons, the most striking
dissimilarities in person, being as often after the briefest as the
longest intervals; his cabinet is pitch dark, the door is never closed,
and only a woolen shawl hangs before the entrance, through which the
gleam of even a rush light would show plainly; his cabinet measures two
feet in width by seven in length; there is neither shelf, nor cupboard,
nor hanging-closet, where properties could be stored, and the only
window is effectually sealed up with my own signet, against all access
from without; his temperament is bilious - nervous, his movements slow
and devoid of springiness, his eye sad and introspective; household
duties, such as women ordinarily engage in, occupy him to the very time
when he begins his séances; he has lived within himself, a simple,
quiet, suffering life, making few intimate friends, being in the world
but not of it; a recluse, in fact, by nature, who seems more familiar
with the beings we call uncanny, than those who jostle us in this
world, as we move along towards our common goal.And as for his linguistic accomplishments, he speaks his own mother tongue with a very strong New England
accent of the vowels, and knows nothing of any other. Add to all this
that, after an acquaintance with him of nearly two months, and the
opportunity of seeing him every day, almost every hour of the time, he
gives me the impression of being, at least, at the present time, a man
pure of mind and heart, tender and truthful, giving to the poor every
spare dollar he earns, frank and open to all, having no vices,
disguises, concealments, or pride, hardly ever casting even a glance at
the busy world that lies beyond his native hills, and it must be
conceded that we have before our camera the unlikeliest of all men to
take rank among the great impostors of history. I pray the reader not
to fancy I am sketching a perfect man, I mean, one whom we would turn
to for comfort and companionship in life. His very temperament unfits
him for general acquaintance. His childhood was one of injustice,
oppression, and cruel treatment from his natural protector - from the
father, who is usually to his child the ideal of justice and
benevolence, the earthly embodiment of the Divine wisdom and patience.
Where other boys receive constant tokens of affection and indulgence,
he got blows, revilings, and bitter denunciations. His mystic
endowments, instead of proving a blessing, brought only misery in their
train; and the poor lad, who loved his mother with the warmth of a
girl's heart, was forced to see her subjected to the same outrageous
rudeness as he received himself.

Then this father of his, showing the innate meanness of his petty soul,
made traffic of the very constitutional peculiarities that he had
striven so hard to flog out of his children, and sent this boy and his
brothers and sisters out with a traveling showman, to be robbed and
shot at and ridden on rails; half-starved, ill-clothed, denounced as
impostors, tortured by sceptical committees, and by inconsiderate
Spiritualists, overdoing precaution in the desire to inspire confidence
in what might be manifested in the presence of the young.

Fancy a child enduring all of this, finding enemies instead of friends
at every step, knowing not whither to turn for sympathy except to the
world of spirits, and to that most loving and sacred of all friends,
his mother, and who can expect to find the man of thirty affable, cool,
inexpressible, equable, suave, and accessible like other men? He
suffers from his enforced seclusiveness all the while, but it cannot be
helped. Many hearts warm towards him, and would show their tenderness,
but they come twenty years too late. The seeds of distrust were planted
in boyhood, watered with tears, grafted with sorrow, and the garden is
choked with bitter fruits. He has turned from man to the animal kingdom
for companionship, and surrounds himself with pets, which, at least, he
thinks, do not repay his care with deceit'.

Well my friends, another journey into the realms of American physical
mediumship we conclude and, as always, it has been a great honour to
bring it to you. It was also, on both occasions, an enormous thrill and
humbling experience for me to have travelled to where the Eddy family
lived on the little winding road in the outback of Chittenden,
surrounded by the beautiful Green Mountains.
The area is now dense woods, but when the Eddy family lived there it
was all rolling hills and pasture land. Horatio Eddy passed away in
1922, and William, the old guard himself, outlived them all, and
reached the age of 99 years, crossing the river at last in 1932. They
held public séances for quite some time after the frenzy of the years
1873 to around 1878 died down, and then slowly returned to the quiet
lives of farming, holding private séances whenever they wished.

The article I have written could have been, easily, three times its
size, there were many more instances of phenomena which had to be
overlooked for the sake of condensing. For instance, on many a moonlit
night, the Eddys, along with small groups of visitors and friends,
would march their way through the dense woods - their one glowing
lantern faintly lighting the way - and hold séances at a grotto they
affectionately called 'Honto's Cave'. It was two absolutely enormous
boulders leaning up against one another; William would sit in the
little area between them, shawls would be hung up on both sides and,
after a brief moment, out would come the spirits, mostly Indians. At
other times, they would wrap shawls around the trunks of closely
grouped trees, and William would simply sit inside. Within seconds out
the materialised forms would come. It must have been something to see
men dressed in complete suits and evening dress, right in the dead
middle of the Vermont woods . . . but they certainly did.

One of the great gifts for me in having these Spiritual Truths
ingrained within my heart and soul is knowing that someday, somewhere
out there, I will one day at last have the glorious opportunity of
meeting William Eddy and his family, and all of the beautiful Indians
who were so much a part of their lives and mission. I would bet that
William is living in a peaceful and serene grassy valley, in a simple
little house, surrounded by his beloved animal friends. We shall see.
There are many who I will be making the journey to see when I myself
arrive in the Summerland.Once again I say to you all,
let those who are meant to be involved in the movement of physical
mediumship within the cause and teachings of Spiritualism, be drawn to
it naturally. Seize the moment and be happy my friends.

NB. This article appeared in the Noahs Ark Society, Ark Review and reproduced here by their kind permission and that of Mr Riley Heagerty